BUS BLUSTER: Milwaukee officials weigh Foxconn bus line amid uncertainty

Listen to this article

Milwaukee city officials weighed plans on Wednesday for a bus route that could bring Milwaukee residents to an expected abundance of job opportunities in Racine and Kenosha counties — but unanswered questions abound.

Local officials hope the proposed route would ease expected traffic congestion around Foxconn Technology Group’s plant and give workers in struggling parts of Milwaukee a reliable means of getting to a place where jobs are expected to be plentiful. Various local governments have weighed the prospect of having a new bus route.

Thomas Stawicki, legislative director at the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 998 in Milwaukee County, said a bus route connecting Milwaukee County with its neighbors to the south would benefit both workers and the transit union. But it’s unclear how often such a bus line would have to run and to what extent state officials would be willing to pay for it.

“It’s all pretty early in the works,” Stawicki said. “I would love to see people be able to get out of Milwaukee and get to some decent- paying jobs. I would love to see the work come to (Milwaukee County Transit System), but it’s all with the state. It’s in their court.”

The discussion on Wednesday follows on the completion of two reports listing the transportation options the region is likely to need to bring workers to and from the Foxconn factory.

One report, prepared by the Eastern Racine County Transportation Task Force, pitches three bus lines that would be used to connect Racine County with Milwaukee and Kenosha counties. Those  would cost $1 million a year to operate. Separately, the report calls on employers and local governments to form a partnership enabling them to transport people using the rideshare companies Uber and Lyft.

To control road congestion near the Foxconn plant, local officials will most likely have to rely on both public and shared forms of transportation. Other options could include offering incentives to people who carpool to work and persuading employers to provide their own shuttles.

Alderman Bob Bauman was skeptical that Uber was actually a good way to take scores of Foxconn employees to work.

“Somebody with a straight face actually recommended rideshare?” Bauman said.

The second report, called Vision 2050, is an attempt in part to predict what the region will look like three decades from now, after companies such as Foxconn, Uline and Amazon give rise to a new wave of development. Foxconn alone is expected to bring 17,000 more jobs and 32,400 more residents to the area, figures that include both direct employees and people working for related projects, according to the report.

As for the transportation projects needed to accommodate the Foxconn project and other developments south of Milwaukee County, local officials predict there won’t be enough money. The report estimates that $809 million will have to be spent by 2050 on road improvements and warns that only $538 million is on-hand for that purpose.

The village of Mount Pleasant, in a deal reached with Racine in August, meanwhile plans to use taxes collected from the Foxconn project to put more money into bus transit. Specifically, the village would increase its spending from $240,000 a year to $340,000 a year to expand bus service between Racine and Mount Pleasant.

That agreement won’t cover transportation outside Racine County, though.

The planning work could still be hindered by questions about Foxconn’s plans. Although Foxconn has said it will hire as many as 10,000 people, the company is under no obligation to hit that figure. Similar uncertainty hangs over the company’s plans for its plant, said Kevin Muhs, deputy director at the Southeast Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission.

In June, the company backed off from its previous plans to build a Generation 10.5 manufacturing plant in Mount Pleasant, which would require reliance on certain specialty suppliers that are rare in the U.S. Foxconn now says it will build a smaller, Generation 6 plant.

“From a long range planning perspective, things shifting under our feet is a real challenge,” Muhs said. “They are saying that they are still intending to build the Generation 10.5 plant eventually but they don’t have the suppliers they need so they are starting with the Generation 6 plant. Obviously all of that is up to what the economy does.”

Company officials similarly did little to shine light in late August on their hiring plans, merely saying that 10 percent of the factory’s workforce would be composed of manufacturing workers and 90 percent of “knowledge workers,” such as engineers. The company also has not released a wage scale showing how much most of the workers will earn. Follow @natebeck9