By Jeramey Jannene, Urban Milwaukee; March 28, 2018
With Foxconn’s proposed $10 billion factory campus in southern Racine County poised to reshape southeastern Wisconsin, Milwaukee Alderman Robert Bauman has introduced the idea of a commuter rail line to connect city residents to the estimated 13,000 jobs the company is poised to create. The transit advocate has been seeking to draw attention to the need to develop a way for Milwaukee residents, approximately 25 percent of whom don’t have cars, to get to the massive factory campus.
Bauman’s latest idea, which would take riders from a station at N. 35th St. and W. Capitol Dr. to Highway 11 in southern Racine County in approximately 45 minutes, competes with two other public transportation proposals that could deliver Milwaukee residents to Foxconn’s front door. The first, introduced recently by Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors Chairman Theodore Lipscomb, Sr. would have the Milwaukee County Transit System operate a bus line to factory campus from downtown Milwaukee. The other, introduced in February by Bauman, would leverage the expansion of the Amtrak Hiawatha Service between Chicago and Milwaukee to provide fast service between the city and rural factory campus. All of the options would require additional public financing, something Bauman says should be a non-issue given the state’s willingness to commit over $4 billion to Foxconn.
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