Happy Mobile Life v2
The Law-First Plan
Start from the law, the street map and people's real trips. Then imagine as far as the law allows.The plan on one page
What this is. A bolder second version of the Happy Mobile Life Product for Sheboygan. Version 1 started from a service dream and checked the law afterward. Version 2 starts from the law, the street map and people's real trips, then imagines as far as the law allows. Living car-free here should feel like an upgrade, not a sacrifice.
What stays fixed. Fare-free for everybody, always. One schedule every day, 5 AM to 12:30 AM. Lakeshore Link daily to Port Washington and Brown Deer. Bridge and TIF money for capital. A post-ownership city with electric and autonomous vehicles phased in over about 20 years. Partners are welcome, never required.
Three things version 1 missed, now fixed.
- Blue Harbor to downtown. Today it is a 1.1 mile, about 23 minute walk around the 8th Street bridge. The planned Virginia Avenue swing bridge (target late 2027) cuts it to roughly 0.7 mile, about 14 to 16 minutes. A 10 minute harbor loop, e-bikes and a summer water taxi stack on top.
- Walking as a first-class mode. Uniform sidewalks, raised crossings, automatic walk signals with leading pedestrian intervals, short crossings and city-led winter clearing on priority routes. Each is tied to a specific authority below.
- Money that is real. No transit sales tax exists in Wisconsin, and levy limits have no transit exception. So Phase 1 uses tools Sheboygan has today: a transit share of the wheel tax, federal 5307 and CMAQ money, and a referendum sized in dollars per median home.
The hard truths a reviewer should know.
- The city already adopted a $30 wheel tax for roads (effective February 1, 2027, about $1.0M a year). Any transit wheel tax is an increase or a reallocation by ordinance.
- The full vision costs about $22.6M a year to run versus about $4.3M today. Reaching it needs a voter-approved levy increase and, for the last stretch, a state law change. The plan grows in phases and never pretends otherwise.
- Wisconsin's Hiawatha extension study runs via Fond du Lac, not Sheboygan, and the I-41 Thruway bus ended October 1, 2025. Regional links here are by coach.
- Free buses mean free paratransit by federal rule. That cost is planned for, not discovered later.
What we ask a reviewer to test. The minute estimates in Section 1, the legal reading in Section 2 (especially push buttons under the accessibility rules), and the per-home referendum math in Section 4.