Milwaukee area freeways

[SEWIGuy]

I know that having a grid and redundancies are pretty fucking important.

They exist already. Which is what everyone who actually knows the area is trying to tell you.

At surface streets with stoplight and traffic signals yes I know I heard them.

Excellent. Then it's time for you to STFU about a stupid tunnel under the airport.  Or take it to Fictional Highways where Fritz and you can give your tunnel a number.

[Plutonic Panda]

I know that having a grid and redundancies are pretty fucking important.

They exist already. Which is what everyone who actually knows the area is trying to tell you.

At surface streets with stoplight and traffic signals yes I know I heard them.

Excellent. Then it's time for you to STFU about a stupid tunnel under the airport.  Or take it to Fictional Highways where Fritz and you can give your tunnel a number.

It's so funny how mad some people on this board are about a fictional tunnel under the airport but OK I'll shut the fuck up then. 

[FightingIrish]

I know that having a grid and redundancies are pretty fucking important.

WHOA! Take it easy now. Deep breaths...

[fuller523]

Bought the "Greater Milwaukee Growing Pains" book used on Amazon.  Good, detailed read on Milwaukee's freeway past.  Shows how ambitious the planners were, but looking at those plans now, dang... you'd be running into a freeway every 3-5 miles if they were all built (overbuilt).  In hindsight, the only one that is really missing is a connection from downtown to the Northwest Side, and maybe a northern loop.  Not sure that the Park West was the best selection.  Really should have focused less on having a downtown loop and the Stadium, and maybe compromised with a "Lake Parkway" style boulevard to connect to 145. But that's for the fictional space!

All in all though, traffic really isn't that bad with the system we have now compared to other cities.

[triplemultiplex]

Helps that the city mostly stopped growing in the 70's.

I thought it was odd no one back in the day came up with the idea of creating basically a mirror image of 894 for the north side. Would have given the freeway network a certain pleasing symmetry.
They had the Bay Freeway proposal, but that wasn't quite the same as 894 since it sort of stair-stepped along the FDL Freeway for a minute. I would have put effort into something like that over anything along Fond du Lac Ave or that Park West bullcrap.

[SEWIGuy]

I'm not surprised there was never a proposal for a nortern Milwaukee bypass. I think there is much less demand for traffic going north of Milwaukee compared to south.

[Jim920]

I think the Bay/outer bypass would be useful, it would have put less stress on current day 894 and 94.

[SEWIGuy]

I think the Bay/outer bypass would be useful, it would have put less stress on current day 894 and 94.

And torn up a number of neighborhoods in the process. Anyway, any northern bypass would have needed to be built through the more rural portions of Ouzakee County, which is now an impossibility.

[The Ghostbuster]

Capitol Drive (STH 190) and Brown Deer Road (STH 100) will have to suffice as northern bypasses of the Milwaukee area.

[triplemultiplex]

Obviously it's unworkable now.  I just find it curious when one looks at all the proposals from the mid-20th Century, planners never honed in on any sort of cogent, full loop for the city.  Even the Belt Freeway proposal only went to 41 north. 

I guess they were thinking about such outer freeways only in the context of bypasses. They didn't think about how freeways were going to change commuting patterns to eventually be heavily suburb-to-suburb.
Probably for the best, ultimately.  The city stopped growing and the added beltline-adjacent real estate probably would've hollowed out the urban core even more than the existing freeway network did.

[The Ghostbuster]

Although it hasn't been added to the Southeast Region DOT webpage, there is now an Interstate 94 study launched between Willow Glen Road (Exit 277) and the Zoo Interchange (Exit 305). It was first announced late last year: https://wisconsindot.gov/Pages/about-wisdot/newsroom/news-rel/121025-tpc.aspx. The other announced study already has a DOT page: https://wisconsindot.gov/Pages/projects/by-region/nw/us53study/default.aspx.

[triplemultiplex]

Makes me feel old to realize I was in college while they were building that US 53 freeway in Eau Claire and now enough time has passed to where they're (likely) going to be adding a third lane in each direction.

And I-94 in Waukesha County; 20 years ago I would have figured it would be 3x3 out to Oconomowoc by now.  But that ball started moving just now; which means maybe something will happen mid 2030's.

[Revive 755]

Bought the "Greater Milwaukee Growing Pains" book used on Amazon.  Good, detailed read on Milwaukee's freeway past.  Shows how ambitious the planners were, but looking at those plans now, dang... you'd be running into a freeway every 3-5 miles if they were all built (overbuilt).  In hindsight, the only one that is really missing is a connection from downtown to the Northwest Side, and maybe a northern loop.

There have been a number of days I would like to have had the Belt Freeway as an option.  A better tie-in for the WI 36 corridor to the north-south section of I-894 would also have been nice.