New Burlington, WI Bypass Completely Open

[SEWIGuy]

I was surprised today to see that the WI-11/36/83 bypass around Burlington, WI opened today.  The section between WI-36 on the north side of town, and WI-83 on the southeast side of town opened last year. 

A couple of thoughts.  The intersection between the bypass and WI-11 heading east to Racine is an at-grade intersection with a light.     Every other major intersection are the simple, "tight ramps" that run up to a simple intersection.  (I cannot recall the name of the type of interchange.)  I only took the bypass as far as WI-36 as I was heading to Lake Geneva...not all the way up to WI-11 heading west toward Elkhorn.

While I don't think this is going to be nearly as heavilly travelled as the WI-26 bypass around Jefferson, I wish they would have learned their lesson about at-grade intersections on high speed bypasses a la Whitewater and Fond du Lac.

[triplemultiplex]

The Burlington bypass sports several jughandle interchanges.
CTH A
WI 142
CTH P
WI 36

In addition to WI 11 east, there's also an at-grade intersection for WI 83 south.

Any sign of locally designated business routes for Burlington?  I would think at least the old WI 11 is deserving of one.

[SEWIGuy]

"Jughandle."  Thank you.  I couldn't remember the term.  And I forgot that the intersection with WI-83 is a light.

My guess is that there will be a Business WI-11 and a Business WI-36.  It's not the easiest town to navigate without signage.

[triplemultiplex]

I finally got a chance to check out this bypass over the weekend and there's a lot not to like.

For starters, I was most curious about any new business routes and there are none.  All the old routes into town carry just their local street names.  The one exception is old WI 11 on the east side of town.  That is now CTH E.

Secondly, I don't like how two of the more major junctions are simple at grade intersections while much more minor ones get jughandles.

This road was paved with asphalt instead of concrete like most new alignment highways in this state.

Finally, it is my opinion that this bypass was a waste of money and shouldn't have been built.  The reason is there is little through traffic in this area.  It's all local traffic.  Most of the traffic coming in and out of Burlington was clearly going to/from Burlington.  SB on WI 36/83 to the north on a Friday afternoon, 80% of the traffic I could see exited to continue into Burlington proper.  I got caught by both traffic signals and nobody turned onto the bypass.  The bypass itself was a frickin' ghost town.  A two lane road with no grade separations could have easily handled the volume.  Instead we have a four lane divided highway with a bunch of overpasses and two major river crossings for what?  So six people from Racine can get to Elkhorn faster?

I know the state highway routings downtown were a big CF, but with all the shitty roads in this state, WisDOT would have been better off spending the 100 million dollars or whatever it cost elsewhere.  I was around the Dells later that weekend and I-90/94 needs new concrete way more than Burlington needed a bypass.  This bypass is exactly why some people are anti-road.  Expensive project of dubious merit championed by a local politician(s).

I think WisDOT is running out of places to build new highways. We've got freeway bypasses of Jefferson, Ft. Atkinson and Watertown done or under construction and I don't think they are truly necessary.  At most those might need use a super-2 bypass.  Who are these WI 26 upgrades for?  That onslaught of people driving between Janesville and the middle of nowhere, Dodge County?  US 151 already exists as a nice, quick ride between Janesville and the Fox Valley.  I think traffic counters are getting stomped by local traffic, not through traffic.

WI 23 could probably wait at least another decade for four lanes between Fondy and Plymouth.  I'm also not entirely sold on the new US 10 expressway to Marshfield west of Junction City.  Meanwhile, thousands of miles of local streets are a shit storm of potholes and broken storm drains.  Long stretches of interstate need new pavement and thousands of bridges need replacing.  I thought the state was "broke" and we need to slash aid to cities, towns & villages.  But hey, at least those few cars that go through Town A can avoid their shitty local streets on a new $100 million bypass.  The state should shift from building new highways to taking care of the ones we've got.

[SEWIGuy]

Well, remember that bypasses are built not just for the traffic that exists now, but the traffic that will exist years from now.  And while I can't speak specifically to Burlington, I can speak specifically to WI-26.  Jefferson County was one of the fastest growing counties in the state over the past decade.  WI-26 is the main n/s route through the county, and in my fifteen years of living here, traffic has grown tremendously.  For instance, the back-ups at its intersection with US-18 in downtown Jefferson were getting to be a big problem, with people using a number of alternative routes along roads not designed for that type of traffic.

And most of this traffic is local...not for people driving from Janesville to the middle of Dodge County.  But for people in Fort Atkinson that work in Janesville...or for people in Jefferson who work in Watertown....or for people throughout the area who shop in Johnson Creek.

So could they have just extended the Super-2 bypass of Fort Atkinson?  Sure...I guess.  But you would still want to acquire the real estate for a four lane ROW, and the marginal cost of actually adding the other lane is small when you place into consideration the entire cost of the project.

[JasonMath]

We've got freeway bypasses of Jefferson, Ft. Atkinson and Watertown done or under construction and I don't think they are truly necessary.  At most those might need use a super-2 bypass.  Who are these WI 26 upgrades for?  That onslaught of people driving between Janesville and the middle of nowhere, Dodge County?

The fact that WI-DOT didn't extend the WI-26 bypass to US-12 south of Fort Atkinson makes it annoying.  The bypass should be extended from Groeler Road and WI-26 Business east to US-12.  It would only be about 3 miles, and make the current bypass much more useful.

[mgk920]

We've got freeway bypasses of Jefferson, Ft. Atkinson and Watertown done or under construction and I don't think they are truly necessary.  At most those might need use a super-2 bypass.  Who are these WI 26 upgrades for?  That onslaught of people driving between Janesville and the middle of nowhere, Dodge County?

The fact that WI-DOT didn't extend the WI-26 bypass to US-12 south of Fort Atkinson makes it annoying.  The bypass should be extended from Groeler Road and WI-26 Business east to US-12.  It would only be about 3 miles, and make the current bypass much more useful.

WI 26 is an amazingly busy highway, serving as a major route between NE Wisconsin and points south and southeast that avoids both Madison and Chicagoland.  There is also a significant amount of local and sub-regional traffic between the cities along its route.  Those upgrades and bypasses were very much needed.

Also, WisDOT has just begun studying the part of WI 26 between WI 60 and US 151.  My take on it?  Build a 'super two' freeway on an upgradable four lanes new-ROW between WI 60 and the US 151 curve at the SE corner of Beaver Dam, roughly paralleling County 'A' and County 'W'.

As for US 12 between Fort Atkinson and Whitewater?  Plans for that section are well advanced, only waiting for funding.  It will run generally southeastward from the WI 26 interchange on the south end of Fort Atkinson to feed directly into the existing US 12 Whitewater bypass.

Mike

[SEWIGuy]

WIDOT is down to two alternatives for a US-12 bypass of Fort Atkinson. 

http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/projects/d1/us12fort/docs/map-southbypassconcept.pdf

Alternative 7 is much less disruptive to current housing, but has massive wetlands relocation to deal with.  My guess is that funding for this will not come anytime soon.  WIDOT is currently launching a study on US-12 between Dane County Highway N and Fort Atkinson.  They are essentially asking "how can we improve this two lane road" type questions. 

I doubt this leads to a four lane road...at least in the short term.  But hopefully they will fix some issues with US-12 such as the ridiculous intersection with WI-73.

[Revive 755]

Drove part of the Burlington bypass this evening.  WTF was WisDOT thinking?  They go through the cost of having interchanges, but then have lousy 10 mph exit ramps?     Is land that expensive around Burlington WisDOT can't afford to go with compact diamonds (upgradeable to SPUIs or DDIs if traffic grows enough)?  Then I have to wonder about the choice of roads that got the interchanges versus those that got poorly timed stoplights that have only permissive left turns, and whether the bypass should have been initially done as a Super 2 with a four lane ROW.

[mgk920]

WIDOT is down to two alternatives for a US-12 bypass of Fort Atkinson. 

http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/projects/d1/us12fort/docs/map-southbypassconcept.pdf

Alternative 7 is much less disruptive to current housing, but has massive wetlands relocation to deal with.  My guess is that funding for this will not come anytime soon.  WIDOT is currently launching a study on US-12 between Dane County Highway N and Fort Atkinson.  They are essentially asking "how can we improve this two lane road" type questions. 

I doubt this leads to a four lane road...at least in the short term.  But hopefully they will fix some issues with US-12 such as the ridiculous intersection with WI-73.

I've discussed this one off and on for years now, US 12 is a route that I can easily see requiring an emergency 'fast-track' upgrade to six lanes at some point in the future when enough of those little pieces, especially in Illinois, fall into place - it will become the preferred routing for traffic into and out of Chicagoland to the northwest.

For the Cambridge-Fort Atkinson part, I would plan for the north US 12/WI 26 split to be a trumpet interchange a short distance south of the current US 12/WI 26 interchange on the Fort Atkinson's northwest side with the trumpet favoring US 12, with US 12 then following a new-ROW from there to a short distance west of Cambridge.

Of all of the unbuilt corridors in Wisconsin, this is the only one that I can see that would likely work as a tollway, with barrier tollgates located between Cambridge and Fort Atkinson and on the yet-to-be-built 'corner cut' between Elkhorn and Whitewater.  The remaining parts of US 12 between Madison and the Illinois state line would remain freeways.

Mike

[JREwing78]

It sounds like WisDOT is still holding onto plans to route US-12 traffic away from Cambridge, instead routing that traffic straight to I-39/90 east of Stoughton.

Taking Fort Atkinson-bound traffic out of the equation, however, might only forestall the inevitable by a decade or two. There's a substantial jump in traffic headed WBD from Cambridge after US-18 joins up and you get past WI-73. It may not have a huge amount of through traffic, but commuter traffic is plentiful.

Also, given the traffic studies I read about I-39/90, the last thing it needs is a US-12 concurrency adding traffic. As it is, the stretch AFTER 6-laning is predicted to be at LOS D or E in 2035 even without adding US-12 to the mix.

It doesn't makes sense to build two E-W 4-lanes here; I suspect ultimately the need to 4-lane US-12/18 west of Cambridge will make it more likely US-12 will be routed near Cambridge instead.

[mgk920]

It sounds like WisDOT is still holding onto plans to route US-12 traffic away from Cambridge, instead routing that traffic straight to I-39/90 east of Stoughton.

Taking Fort Atkinson-bound traffic out of the equation, however, might only forestall the inevitable by a decade or two. There's a substantial jump in traffic headed WBD from Cambridge after US-18 joins up and you get past WI-73. It may not have a huge amount of through traffic, but commuter traffic is plentiful.

Also, given the traffic studies I read about I-39/90, the last thing it needs is a US-12 concurrency adding traffic. As it is, the stretch AFTER 6-laning is predicted to be at LOS D or E in 2035 even without adding US-12 to the mix.

It doesn't makes sense to build two E-W 4-lanes here; I suspect ultimately the need to 4-lane US-12/18 west of Cambridge will make it more likely US-12 will be routed near Cambridge instead.

I, too, would vacate the preserved ROW for the never-built US 12 interchange along I-39/90 a bit NE of Stoughton, instead including provisions for major 'system' upgrades at the re-engineered Beltline interchange in Madison.

For US 12, I would work on a routing that runs east-west at the south edge of Deerfield (diverging from the current US 12/18 at the curve just east of County 'W'), then curving southeastward to pass due east-west just north of Cambridge, curving around southward east of the Lake Ripley area (US 18 to diverge there) and then continuing southeastward towards Fort Atkinson.  I would have it feed into the due north-south section of current WI 26 at the curve on the west edge of Fort Atkinson, with WI 26 connecting to this highway via a trumpet interchange favoring US 12.

I stand by my long-standing words that I sense US 12 through that area as a dam that is about to fail, with the real potential of this becoming the major routing for traffic running northwestward from Chicagoland - and then needing emergency fast-track upgrades to interstate-compatible six lanes throughout.

Mike

[JREwing78]

So I drove the Burlington Bypass the other day.

Traffic was surprisingly heavy on it - not beyond some of the 2-lanes I've seen, but heavy enough that 4 lanes weren't out of the question.

I too was rather perplexed at the jughandle on/off ramps and randomly-placed stoplights. It's like WisDOT is purposely trying to NOT build a high-speed highway here; there's no way those short deceleration lanes and sharp curves would fly on a new interstate. The at-grade on the west end is goofy and needs a flyover like the east end does.

Also, as much as the stretches between stoplights beg otherwise, don't stray far beyond the speed limit. Police presences was very heavy. Local authorities have found themselves an ATM machine.

At least access rights are locked off, and there's potential for future conversion to freeway here.

[mgk920]

So I drove the Burlington Bypass the other day.

Traffic was surprisingly heavy on it - not beyond some of the 2-lanes I've seen, but heavy enough that 4 lanes weren't out of the question.

I too was rather perplexed at the jughandle on/off ramps and randomly-placed stoplights. It's like WisDOT is purposely trying to NOT build a high-speed highway here; there's no way those short deceleration lanes and sharp curves would fly on a new interstate. The at-grade on the west end is goofy and needs a flyover like the east end does.

Also, as much as the stretches between stoplights beg otherwise, don't stray far beyond the speed limit. Police presences was very heavy. Local authorities have found themselves an ATM machine.

At least access rights are locked off, and there's potential for future conversion to freeway here.

Yea, this was designed at about the same time as the disastrous US 151 bypass of Fond du Lac (plus others).

And yes, lots of us Wisconsin-based roadgeeks™ made much objection to those 'cheapout' designs at their many PIMs and public hearings.  WisDOT did appear to learn its lesson with US 151 and their newer bypasses, such as WI 26 at Watertown, Jefferson and Milton, are being done right as full freeways to start.

Mike

[JREwing78]

The Burlington ATM machine... er, bypass nailed my co-worker a couple weeks ago on the way back from Racine. Depending on the cop, a 15-over ticket is either $88 (Town of Burlington) or $188 (Racine Co.).

Speaking of which, the Burlington bypass is easily the quickest route between Racine and I-43 near Elkhorn (assuming you're not stopped for 70 in a 55 on the bypass). Traffic is light, signals don't hold you up for long, and it's easy to cut over to WI-20 via County D - except I keep missing that turn every time I head that way.