Foxconn spurs transport study

Task force would look at how to shore up roads in semi-rural Racine County

With construction of the massive Foxconn Technology Group manufacturing complex looming, Racine County Executive Jonathan Delagrave is proposing creation of a task force to recommend improvements to the area’s transportation system.

Delagrave’s initiative figures to address what many have identified as a key issue — how to get the huge numbers of workers Foxconn says it will hire to the planned campus in a semi-rural corner of Mount Pleasant.

Foxconn has said it eventually could have 13,000 employees in southeastern Wisconsin, with still more people working at suppliers expected to cluster around the company’s liquid crystal display panel factory.

Plans for the extensive local road work needed to accommodate thousands of additional cars and trucks per day already are moving forward. That will be critical for a site that borders I-94 but otherwise is now served by narrow, low-capacity roads.

Delagrave, however, is planning to cast a wider net with his proposed study group.

“Anything and everything is on the table,” he said.

That could include evaluation of the potential roles to be played by buses, ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft, and even driverless vehicles.

The routes of Racine’s bus system now fall two to three miles short of the Foxconn site.

Delagrave said he also would like to explore the creation of east-west routes that would slice the drive time between I-94 and downtown Racine.

That trip now can take 25 minutes, he said, and he wonders if it might be possible to cut it by 10 minutes.

Delagrave hopes to include representatives from Foxconn, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission in the study effort.

If the as-yet-unnamed task force could begin meeting by early April, it could make recommendations this fall, he said.

“Hopefully we can get a coordinated plan in place to significantly upgrade our transportation system here in Racine County and maybe potentially southeast Wisconsin,” Delagrave said.