Wheelchair Rides Across Southeastern Wisconsin
Milwaukee, Waukesha, Racine, Kenosha and Walworth counties — including the trips that cross a county line.
Five Counties, One Phone Number
BriteLift arranges wheelchair accessible rides across Milwaukee, Waukesha, Racine, Kenosha and Walworth counties. We coordinate the trip, confirm the vehicle actually fits the wheelchair, and stay accountable for the booking from the first call through the drop-off.
There is no eligibility application, no certification interview and no waiting to be approved. Anyone can book, and anyone can pay for their own ride. Call 414-716-1212 or use the booking form further down this page.
Crossing a County Line Is Where Plans Get Complicated
This is the most common reason families in the suburbs call us. The rules are more particular than most people expect, and they are worth getting right before you pay anybody.
County paratransit is built around county borders. Milwaukee County’s Transit Plus carries riders border-to-border inside Milwaukee County and does not leave it. Waukesha County’s Aging and Disability Resource Center is more flexible than that. Its RideLine program will go out of county, but only for medical services that cannot be obtained inside Waukesha County, and only with prior approval — with four standing exceptions that need no approval at all: Froedtert/MCW’s main campus, the Zablocki VA, The Eye Institute, and Aurora St. Luke’s for cardiac care.
That distinction decides whether you need us at all. If you live in Brookfield and the appointment is at Froedtert’s main campus, RideLine covers that trip and you should use it — it will cost a fraction of a private ride. The ADRC number is 262-548-7848.
The trips that genuinely fall through are the ones just outside those lines: a specialist at a hospital that is not on the exception list, a service the county judges you could have received in Waukesha, an appointment outside weekday daytime hours, a rider who was never certified, or any trip that is not medical at all — the airport, a funeral, a grandchild’s graduation.
When a cross-county trip is ours to arrange, it is one booking. Pickup in Waukesha County and drop-off at a Milwaukee County hospital is one ride, one fare and one confirmation — no transfer, no handoff between two programs, no second application to fill out.
Racine and Kenosha counties have no equivalent out-of-county medical van program, so the northbound run to a Milwaukee specialist is generally a private ride from the start. The same is true traveling out to Lake Geneva or Elkhorn from the city.
Counties and Communities We Serve
Milwaukee County
The heart of the service area, with the widest choice of accessible vehicles in our network. This is also where most of the region’s hospitals are, so a large share of the rides we arrange either end here or start here.
Milwaukee County residents may also qualify for Milwaukee County Transit Plus, the county’s ADA paratransit program. It is a genuinely good program for a standing, predictable appointment, and it is worth applying for if you have not. Two things to know: eligibility requires certification, and having a disability does not by itself qualify you. Standard reservations must be placed by 4:30 PM the day before the trip, and scheduled pickups carry a 30-minute arrival window. Transit Plus also runs a same-day pilot for riders already enrolled, capped at eight one-way trips a month and closing to requests at 5:59 PM. If the letter came back as a denial or as conditional eligibility, that word has a specific meaning and it is not the same as no.
People generally call us when the trip falls outside those lines: an appointment scheduled this afternoon, a discharge that got moved, a trip leaving the county, or a rider who was never certified in the first place. Before paying for any of those, it is worth reading what the county, the tribes and the hospital systems will cover for free or close to it. FlexRide, the city’s $3 microtransit, does carry wheelchairs and will switch to door-to-door pickup if you ask for a wheelchair accessible vehicle — but it only runs between set neighborhood and employment zones, so it is good for getting to a shift and no use at all for a clinic.
The south end of the county has its own wrinkle. Everything down there is technically covered, but the $5 county senior van excludes anyone enrolled in Family Care, IRIS, Partnership, PACE or Wisconsin Medicaid, and almost every specialist referral turns into a long run north. Details in our guide to Franklin, Oak Creek, Cudahy and the South Shore.
Waukesha County
Waukesha County’s ADRC operates a shared-fare taxi program and RideLine, a subsidized wheelchair accessible van service, for certified county residents. Fares run roughly $3.50 to $17.00 a leg depending on income, weekdays from about 6 AM to 6 PM, with 24 to 48 hours’ notice. Both require an application and certification before the first ride, and the shared-fare taxi expects the rider to board with little or no assistance. Waukesha, Brookfield, Menomonee Falls and several other municipalities also run their own senior taxi programs, and almost all of them are ambulatory-only.
RideLine will leave the county for medical trips, so it is a real option for a Froedtert or Zablocki VA appointment and it is worth pricing first. What it will not do is a non-medical trip across the line, an evening or weekend run, or a request made this morning for this afternoon. Those are what most of our Waukesha County bookings actually are — Mitchell Airport, a family event, or an appointment that moved. More detail on all of it in our guide to Waukesha County transportation services.
Racine County
Riders in Racine County are connected with wheelchair accessible vehicles for trips inside the county and for the run north to Milwaukee-area hospitals and specialty clinics. That northbound trip is roughly 30 to 40 minutes each way depending on where in the county you start, which matters when you are deciding whether to book a return ride or a wait-and-return. RYDE Racine’s DART service covers the eastern side of the county, within about three-quarters of a mile of its fixed routes; Union Grove, Waterford and Burlington sit outside it and fall to a separate county human services program. More on both counties in our Racine and Kenosha guide.
Kenosha County
Kenosha County sits between two metro areas, and riders here travel in both directions — north to Milwaukee and south toward the Illinois state line. The city’s own paratransit runs east of I-94 only, so Twin Lakes, Salem Lakes, Paddock Lake and Bristol have no city program at all. It also does not run on Sundays, and the operator changed in January 2026, so an old leaflet on the refrigerator may have the wrong phone number on it. The fares, hours and boundary are laid out in our Racine and Kenosha guide. Tell us the destination when you book, because a longer trip needs a vehicle assigned with the drive time built in rather than squeezed between two other rides.
Walworth County
Walworth County’s resort and residential communities are the furthest point of the service area, and rides here need more notice than a trip inside Milwaukee. A day or two ahead is comfortable; same-day is worth a phone call but is not something to count on.
Don’t see your community? Call 414-716-1212. The list above is where we go most often, not a fence.
Rides We Arrange Most Often
Dialysis Transportation
Three trips a week, every week. Set the schedule up once and the ride home is arranged along with it.
Medical Appointments
Clinic visits, infusions, imaging, pre-op and follow-ups, with the return trip planned around how long you will actually be inside.
Hospital Discharge Rides
Discharge times move. When the ride home is needed today rather than tomorrow, we arrange a wheelchair accessible vehicle without an application or a certification step first.
A Ride Today, on Short Notice
Transit Plus closed at 4:30 PM yesterday, OATS wants three weekdays, Eras wants seven. What is still bookable this afternoon, and what it costs.
Rides Home After Outpatient Surgery
Sedation means you can’t leave alone, and a driver by himself often isn’t enough either. What Froedtert, Aurora and Ascension actually ask for at the desk.
Milwaukee County Transit Plus
How to apply, the in-person assessment, the $4 fare, the 4:30 PM cutoff, and the trips it will not take. Read this before you pay anyone.
Froedtert and the Regional Medical Center
Patient pick-up is on Level 2 inside Parking 1, and the campus is under construction. Which building and which door, not just which hospital.
Radiation and Chemotherapy
Radiation is five mornings a week for weeks. Booking the whole course at once beats booking fifty legs one at a time.
Rides to Mitchell Airport (MKE)
Wheelchair accessible rides to and from MKE, booked ahead so a vehicle is waiting when the flight lands.
Senior Transportation
Standing rides for older adults who have stopped driving — appointments, errands, church and family visits.
South Shore and South Suburbs
Franklin, Oak Creek, Cudahy, South Milwaukee and St. Francis — the county programs down there, and the ones that will turn you down.
Waukesha County Transportation Services
RideLine, Shared-Fare Taxi, Metrolift and MTM — what each one covers, where it stops, and which trips need a private accessible vehicle.
Racine and Kenosha County Rides
Where DART and Kenosha’s paratransit stop, why I-94 matters, and the northbound run to a Milwaukee specialist.
Renting or Buying a Wheelchair Van
What a conversion really costs, why the nearest rental counter is in Waukesha, and the Wisconsin loan program with no income test.
Wheelchair Accessible Transportation
How the service works, what the vehicles carry, and what to expect from booking through to drop-off.
Still weighing your options? Read Milwaukee wheelchair transportation: all options compared — paratransit, rideshare, medical transport and private pay, side by side. Wondering about price? See what wheelchair accessible transportation costs in Milwaukee. Thinking about a van of your own instead? We ran the rent-buy-or-book arithmetic.
What to Tell Us When You Book
Four details decide which vehicle is assigned, and getting them right is the difference between a ride that works and a vehicle at the curb that cannot take the chair.
- The type of wheelchair. Manual, power chair or scooter. Power chairs are heavier and wider and need more ramp clearance and floor space.
- Whether the rider can transfer. If transferring to a car seat is unsafe or painful, the rider stays in the chair and rolls up the van’s ramp.
- Anyone riding along. A spouse, an adult child or a home health aide rides at no extra cost. Put them on the booking so the seat is there.
- What is waiting at both ends. Steps at the front door, a long campus walk, a threshold a power chair will not clear. Tell us in advance; it beats finding out on arrival.
Every ride is arranged in a wheelchair accessible van with a ramp and a securement system for the chair.
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Milwaukee, Waukesha, Racine, Kenosha & Walworth counties