By the numbers
Ridership on Amtrak’s passenger service between Milwaukee and Chicago decreased by 9,200, or 1.3 percent, in the last 12 months and remains well below pre-pandemic numbers, federal figures show.
There are two lines that run between the two cities, the Hiawatha, which runs between Milwaukee and Chicago, and the Borealis, connecting Chicago to the Twin Cities but making a stop in Milwaukee. For federal fiscal year 2025, total Amtrak ridership on both lines between Chicago and Milwaukee decreased from 691,200 to 682,000.
For the Hiawatha line, which runs between the cities five or six times in both directions depending on the day of the week, the 12-month total of 632,000 passengers leaves the service well short of its pre-pandemic peak.
Ridership figures were up for the Milwaukee-Chicago leg of Amtrak’s Borealis service with about 50,000 riders using those trains to travel between Milwaukee and Chicago in fiscal year 2025. The Borealis trains, however, only began running in May 2024, meaning the prior fiscal year’s figure included only five months of Borealis ridership. Amtrak reports annual ridership based on the federal fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.
Both services are among Amtrak’s “state supported” lines, subsidized by state taxpayers.
The Badger Institute has previously reported on Amtrak ridership in 2023 in relation to Gov. Tony Evers’ proposal to expand Amtrak service in the state, along with an update reflecting fiscal year 2024’s figures.
As the Badger Institute then noted, state funding is required to pay for any operating costs not covered by ticket revenue. For fiscal year 2025, the shortfall between ticket revenue and operating expenses on the Hiawatha service was $10.2 million, or $16.14 per ride.
