MILWAUKEE– Four proposals have been revealed to members of the public, hinting at a new reimagined look for the highway.
Wisconsin State Highway 175 is nearing the end of its life and residents and Wisconsin Department of Transportation officials say a change is needed.
Project director Doug Cain says that from the past two public involvement meetings, he and his WisDOT team have been able to put together four plans that seek to address the issues that drivers have of the six-lane highway.
“There’s been great feedback and we’ve gotten a lot of helpful comments,” said Cain. “The themes that we’ve heard from the input has been safety, lower speeds, multi-modal options which would be bike, pedestrian and transit. We’ve also have been asked for a lot of reconnection opportunities.”
Those opportunities would include grading the existing road and providing more land back to the community so that it would be used for more mixed-residential housing and local businesses.
Community members such as Chris Dwyer says he sees the potential of what the proposed reimagining of WIS 175 would bring to residents.
“It would make our space a place for people and not just cars,” said Dwyer. “I think it would make this already great community even more vibrant and vital.”
On Thursday, members of the public were invited to take part in the third public involvement meeting where the four proposals were presented.
PROPOSAL 1: A baseline that would maintain the existing configuration of WIS 175 where the expressway ends at Lisbon Avenue. This alternative would match into the planned WIS 175 Stadium Interchange reconstruction as a diverging diamond at I-94 East-West.
PROPOSAL 2: The expressway ends near the northern study limits between Vine and Lloyd Street. This alternative provides an expressway for most of the full length of WIS 175 corridor and transitions to an at-grade boulevard beginning at Lloyd Street.
PROPOSAL 3: The expressway ends near the middle of the corridor, north of State Street. The expressway ends near the middle of the corridor and transitions to an at-grade intersections at State Street, Vliet Street, Washington Boulevard and Lloyd Street.
PROPOSAL 4: The expressway ends near the southern study limits between Wells and State Street. This alternative transitions to an at-grade signaled boulevard at State Street. With a one-way pair roadway between Vliet Street and Lloyd Street and at-grade intersections at State Street, Martin Drive, Vliet Street, Washington Boulevard and Lloyd Street.
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation created each plan with the mindset of user safety, social reconnection, neighborhood design and economic reconnection factors that would help the overall communities that live alongside WIS 175.
Washington Heights resident Robin Palm says he prefers proposal four and believes the project would add more land back into the community.
“The alternative south creates an additional 35 acres to Washington Heights, which is 10% of the neighborhood right now. So that is a big deal to add that much more to the neighborhood,” said Palm. “I’ve been advocating just for like some row housing or even a bodega or two, just because we are located within a food desert in this part of the city.”
While no timeline has been released for when the project would start, WisDOT does plan to keep refining and polishing their plans with help from the community.
Once a plan is set, the project would get a majority of its funding from the state government.
