Milwaukee area freeways

[SEWIGuy]

The SE Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission has a bunch of ideas on its site that are absolutely going nowhere.  They still have the US-12 relocation plan between Elkhorn and Whitewater on there!

Until a project gets listed on the WIDOT site, its best to view this as thought-pieces instead of active plans.

[triplemultiplex]

It can be tempting to read too much into SEWRPC's ideas about the freeway network since many of the rebuilds/expansions in the last 20 years seem to be rooted in their proposals in that document.  But they are just recommendations from a committee, basically.

Extending the Lake Parkway just to College Ave would involve some fairly significant r/w impacts to several light industrial properties and the new USPS distribution facility they put in less than 10 years ago.  Tough sell this day in age to build new highways in already built-up areas to begin with.  I think the ship has sailed on this idea.  Someone at SEWRPC clinging to the mid-20th century notion of the Lake Freeway extending all the way to Illinois.

[The Ghostbuster]

Here is a story from Wisconsin Watch about flooding concerns due to the Interstate 94 expansion project: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/milwaukee-residents-fear-more-flooding-due-to-planned-i-94-expansion/ar-AA1f59vA?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=e7d755586c3245d48d1844ee152db8d2&ei=52.

[colinstu]

Here is a story from Wisconsin Watch about flooding concerns due to the Interstate 94 expansion project: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/milwaukee-residents-fear-more-flooding-due-to-planned-i-94-expansion/ar-AA1f59vA?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=e7d755586c3245d48d1844ee152db8d2&ei=52.

Those Story Hill NIMBYs will never shut up won't they? Fabricating stuff, folks, they're not gonna just plunk down a highway and not deal with the water from it. It's all figured out. What a joke.

[SEWIGuy]

Here is a story from Wisconsin Watch about flooding concerns due to the Interstate 94 expansion project: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/milwaukee-residents-fear-more-flooding-due-to-planned-i-94-expansion/ar-AA1f59vA?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=e7d755586c3245d48d1844ee152db8d2&ei=52.

Those Story Hill NIMBYs will never shut up won't they? Fabricating stuff, folks, they're not gonna just plunk down a highway and not deal with the water from it. It's all figured out. What a joke.

Eh. Can't really blame them for worrying about the impacts of a highway expansion through their neighborhood.

[triplemultiplex]

If anything, the flooding potential after this project will be better, not worse. Because when this freeway was built in the 60's, there was no understanding of the usefulness of detaining and delaying runoff.  They just tried to shunt rainfall into the closest waterway to get it flowing away from whatever it is they were building.  That was the mentality back then.

Now we have a much more complete understanding of how urban surfaces interact with rainfall and snowmelt.  We know to include infrastructure that softens the surge of runoff flowing from impermeable surfaces.  You'll never see concrete-lined ditches along newly built or rebuilt roads (excepting some rare situations.)  They know to use rip-rap instead because that slows the flow of run off.  They also know to build retention features into the drainage system, including having little check dams in the ditch to slow the flow of run off and reduce the potential discharge peak in local streams like the Menomonee River or Honey Creek in this case.

If someone wants to be against this reconstruction project; fine.  There are plenty of understandable reasons to do so.  Why include one that is not only not going to materialize, but get better?

The annoying thing is, because this is just one project going on in a large, mostly urbanized watershed with lots of changes to impermeable surfaces every single year, there very well could be a net increase in peak discharges during rain events by the time the freeway project is complete.  But only because they built a new subdivision way up in Germantown and someone repaved a parking lot over by Penzy Spices and a new warehouse went up in Menomonee Falls.  And these people will blame it on the I-94 expansion project even though it will add less water to the river than it does now.

[mgk920]

Approved!

The Feds gave their final approval to the planned 8-lane upgrade of the I-94 east-West Freeway, rejecting all civil rights objections.  This $1.2B 'big shovel' project is now set to begin construction next year.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/money/business/2024/03/08/i-94-freeway-widening-on-milwaukees-west-side-wins-federal-approval/72900165007/

Enjoy! 

Mike

[The Ghostbuster]

Good news! This project is long overdue. Hopefully it proceeds as planned.

[triplemultiplex]

I wonder how they will handle the cemetery west of Brewers Stadium.

Basically just not gonna have shoulders thru there.