The Wisconsin Division of Transportation (WisDOT) plans to broaden a 3.5-mile stretch of Interstate-94 in Milwaukee. The $1.2 billion enlargement would see the freeway widened from six to eight lanes between seventieth and sixteenth Streets within the metropolis. WisDOT claims the modernization undertaking would scale back congestion and chase on this part of I-94 which passes American Household Subject, the house of the Milwaukee Brewers baseball staff.
Together with fully ignoring the idea of induced demand, the I-94 enlargement undertaking has confronted vital backlash from the communities adjoining to I-94. Many of those marginalized neighborhoods can be getting double-tapped after the freeway’s preliminary building within the Sixties.
A kind of impacted neighborhoods is Piggsville. Piggsville sits on an city peninsula with I-94 to the south, the Menomonee River to the west, and Wisconsin Avenue and the Molson Coors brewery to the north. There aren’t any supermarkets, grocery shops or fast-food eating places in Piggsville. It’s a meals desert the place the one native place to purchase meals is a gasoline station. Any journey to purchase meals on this part of the town and not using a automobile requires a mile-long stroll to and again.
City Milwaukee reported that the enlargement of I-94 would consequence within the demolition of the neighborhood’s gasoline station. An pressing care middle and a Black-owned bar would even be torn all the way down to accommodate the undertaking.
There’s a coalition of neighborhood organizations advocating for an alternate modernization undertaking known as Repair at Six. The plan would name for the freeway to be repaired however stay at six lanes. The funds for freeway enlargement can be diverted to increasing Milwaukee’s public transportation system on this space of the town, together with a brand new bus fast transit line. Ideally, this plan would scale back demand on I-94 and make adjoining communities safer for pedestrians and bicycle riders. Repair at Six would even be $40 million cheaper than the eight-lane enlargement.
Nonetheless, the Milwaukee County Board voted in opposition to a non-binding Repair at Six decision yesterday. The decision did not go by a single vote. Seemingly, federal intervention can be the one methodology to avert the eight-lane enlargement. Contemplating the federally-funded undertaking to take away I-375 in downtown Detroit, a change of route wouldn’t be out of the query.
