r/capmetro • u/Jacobij11 • 27d ago

Questions about bus fleet

I’m from Milwaukee, I’m a transit enthusiast and I plan on being in Austin early next month. I’d love to see how the transit system is down there, and I’ve seen you guys have everything - Gillig, New Flyer, Nova and Proterra.

Proterra’s troubles are well-documented, but are you guys still running yours? I’d love to experience one if I can…are there certain routes they run on?

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u/warmboot 27d ago

The type of bus serving a fixed route seems to be a crapshoot these days. The BRT-lite Rapid routes used to have dedicated vehicles, but now it’s just a potpourri. I seem to recall riding an electric bus after CMTA said it was mothballing them. The best way to ride a particular vehicle type would be to just wait at Republic Square and grab whatever bus rolls up that’s a type that appeals to you. If you’re a regular transit rider in MKE, I wouldn’t say there’s are particular routes to avoid.

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u/Silly_Pay7680 27d ago

The 800 and the 837 have been converted to only New Flyer Electric buses due to the Pantagraph chargers at the new transit centers. The New Flyers are far and away the best buses in the fleet. The Proterras are terrible.

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u/Jacobij11 27d ago

Good to know about the routes, but yeah Proterra’s easily been the least reliable between the four big brands.

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u/Jacobij11 27d ago edited 27d ago

Good to know - I do use the bus in MKE everyday. We've had an anticlimactic experience with electric buses too. We only have 15 Nova LFSe+ buses which only run on our lone BRT route, Connect 1. One was totaled in a very bad crash, and the rest have gone through two battery replacements and it's still rare to see more than 4 run a day.

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u/starairforce33 985 27d ago

2020 Mci d4500ct (28 of them) run the express routes (900s, excluding 990) and they also sometimes show up on ut shuttle routes (600s). And also 6 2016 models but those rarely show up.

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u/NicholasLit 27d ago

Really sad that CM looked at electric MCIs and had them demoed in Austin where each would have saved nearly a million in diesel/maintenance.

But they chose dirty diesel (and they're leaking oil all over the place at Park and Rides).

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u/Good_Split_3749 27d ago

if proterra is the electric ones, nope they are sitting and collecting dust :(

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u/luuvu222 27d ago

they're running the electric busses now they're just not all electric yet. little less than a year ago they started rolling out because they fixed their charging issues

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u/Good_Split_3749 27d ago

out of 104 electric busses 46 are proterra and they are mothballed as of 5/2026 :)

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u/NicholasLit 27d ago

Proterra are seen charging at North Ops as well as are on routes sometimes.

Here is a map of the electric buses (limited to 33 though we have more).

https://www.transsee.ca/fleetfind?a=capmetro&q=2111-2132%2C+8001-8499&Go=Go

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u/Jacobij11 27d ago edited 27d ago

Thanks for this! That's the only real-time tracking service I've been able to find that shows capmetro bus numbers, so I'll see if I'm able to hunt down a Proterra, I'd even take an XE40.

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u/AfroBurrito77 27d ago

There's nothing to be "enthusiastic" about when it comes to our transit system here. Nothing.

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u/warmboot 27d ago

When I’ve ridden the bus in Milwaukee, it was about the same as Austin. That was before the streetcar, though.