The Milwaukee Transit Riders Union has been discussing the current plan to widen Interstate 94 from Milwaukee to the state line. Public input is still possible in the process. The closest public meeting to Milwaukee will be held at the Airport Best Western, which is just off MCTS Route 80. More information is available below.
Next road work tab $1.9 billion
Freeway project would expand I-94 to eight lanes from airport to state line
By TOM HELD
theld@journalsentinel.comPosted: Nov. 15, 2007
The next massive freeway project for southeast Wisconsin, reconstructing and expanding I-94 from the state line to the Mitchell Interchange, comes with equally massive sticker shock: $1.9 billion, the biggest price tag in state roadway history.
State Transportation Secretary Frank Busalacchi shared that hefty cost estimate Thursday when he made public the preferred plan to expand the 35 miles of freeway from six lanes to eight.
The department will release its draft environmental impact statement on the project today, and will seek Federal Highway Administration approval to begin the construction in the Mitchell Interchange in 2009.
The state will look for federal highway funds to pay for half of the $1.9 billion estimated cost.
That figure covers the reconstruction of 17 interchanges in Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha counties, straightening of the Plainfield curve just south of Howard Ave. and the real estate costs to acquire a dozen houses and a dozen businesses in the freeway right of way. Two of the homes would be removed only if the state wins federal approval to add an interchange at Drexel Ave. in Oak Creek.
The completion date is set for 2016.
The number of homes to be removed has dropped steadily during the project planning, from earlier estimates of 40 to 45 in Milwaukee County alone, to the four in Milwaukee County and another eight scattered in Racine and Kenosha counties.
As the property impacts decreased, the price tag climbed, to a figure that stuns some officials.
“Those are huge, huge numbers when you’re talking $1.7 (billion) to $2 billion,” said Patrick Curley, chief of staff to Mayor Tom Barrett. “What that all means when this is all constructed is that it’s going to be higher.”
Barrett was tied up Thursday with the selection of a new police chief in Milwaukee and unavailable to comment on the I-94 reconstruction plan.
For comparison, the ongoing reconstruction of the Marquette Interchange is estimated to cost $810 million.
Only the deep tunnel project with other improvements to the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District appears to be a more expensive public works project, topping $4 billion, spread through the 1980s and up to 2010.
Taken as a whole, the freeway reconstruction in southeast Wisconsin, as projected by the regional plan commission, will top $6.23 billion, according to a 2003 estimate. That plan also calls for expanding the east-west I-94 to eight lanes from the Zoo Interchange to Highway 16 in western Waukesha County.
Objections raised
The logical question to ask is “what can we afford,” said Steve Hiniker, executive director of the environmental advocacy group 1000 Friends of Wisconsin.
The cost goes beyond dollars to the additional encroachment on farmland and wetlands and the additional auto emissions, Hiniker said.
“You have a couple billion dollars now going into freeway expansion at a time when we’re also trying to figure out ways to reduce auto travel because of the use and cost of oil and the impacts on our climate,” he said. “We have to take a deep breath and figure out how we’re going to build a multimodal system, instead of just pouring concrete.”
Gretchen Schuldt, co-chair of Citizens Allied for Sane Highways, a group opposed to freeway expansion, took a similarly critical view.
The added lanes will contribute to the health problems in children caused by the auto-produced pollutants, particularly those attending schools in the freeway corridor, Schuldt said.
And the plan to expand the freeways seems counter to the ongoing shift in transportation resources.
“The oil era is clearly coming to an end,” Schuldt said. “Instead of investing in transit and smart energy projects, we’re throwing it on pavement and will bankrupt the state sooner rather than later.”
Busalacchi found support for his plan from Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and area legislators who regard the north-south corridor as a vital pathway for commerce and a link to the dollars available in the Chicago marketplace.
In their view, the 35 miles of concrete and asphalt, at nearly 50 years old, has deteriorated beyond repair, and projected congestion will hamper the transport of products into and through the state. Without the reconstruction and expansion, accident rates will continue to increase, they say.
Busalacchi said the result of rebuilding the interchange in its current six-lane configuration would foster gridlock in several areas. Traffic volumes will top 130,000 vehicles a day in Kenosha County and 190,000 vehicles a day near the Mitchell Interchange, exceeding the capacity of the six-lane freeway by 2035, according to DOT figures.
“In order to keep Wisconsin open for business, and to keep the economy growing, we have to keep this open,” Busalacchi said.
Rep. Jeff Stone (R-Greendale) said the lost business and economic impact of not expanding the corridor to eight lanes would be more than the cost of the project.
“These expansions are expensive, and yet, we have congestion that needs to be addressed, and the only way you’re going to get there is by adding capacity,” said Stone, who focuses on transportation spending as a member of the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee.
The plan Busalacchi provided includes changes in the construction schedule for the project.
Work would start on the Mitchell Interchange in 2009, with the reconstruction there to be completed by 2012, in time for work to start on the Zoo Interchange on the west side of the county.
The frontage roads in Racine and Kenosha counties would be rebuilt over the same time.
After completion of the Mitchell Interchange work, crews will begin rebuilding and expanding the interstate at the state line and proceed north.
Public hearings are scheduled as follows:
-Dec. 3, 4-8 p.m. West Middle School, 8401 S. 13th St., in Oak Creek
-Dec. 6, 5-8 p.m. Mahone Middle School, 6900 60th St., Kenosha
-Dec. 11, 5-8 p.m. CATI Center, 2320 Renaissance Blvd., Sturtevant
-Dec. 12, 4-8 p.m. Best Western Airport, 5105 S. Howell Ave., Milwaukee. Comments on the draft environmental impact statement can be sent to: WisDOT Southeast Freeways Team, 141 NW Barstow St., Waukesha, WI 53187. The deadline is Dec. 31.