La Crosse, WI

Downtown La Crosse meets the Mississippi River at 14-acre Riverside Park, where a historic bandstand supports summer concerts and the calendar ranges from Riverfest in July to Rotary Lights in winter. The park also provides access to river tours, paddling, fishing, an ice rink, and the city's trail system. Across the channel, 230-acre Pettibone Park adds a river beach and disc golf; east of downtown, Grandad Bluff rises to a 1,184-foot overlook and hosts New Year's Eve fireworks. Myrick Park opens into a 1,077-acre riparian wetland and floodplain. Together, these sites are part of more than 70 miles of paved and natural-surface trails extending from neighborhoods into bluffs, marshes, and riverfront parks. Municipal Transit Utility gives that landscape a practical citywide counterpart. MTU operates eight fixed routes and two flex routes, with most service running seven days a week through La Crosse and into French Island, part of Onalaska, and La Crescent, Minnesota.

Students at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, Western Technical College, and Viterbo University ride without paying a fare when they show campus identification; the standard adult fare is $1.50 and includes transfers. The July 2025 Census estimate was 50,784 residents, down 3.6 percent from the April 2020 estimate base. Rentals were the majority tenure during 2020 through 2024 because owner occupancy was 46.1 percent. Median gross rent was $1,010, compared with a median owner-occupied value of $210,100. The mean trip to work was 15.9 minutes, and the poverty rate was 21.4 percent.