MILWAUKEE— The advocacy group Rethink 794 is criticizing Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson’s recommendation to keep the elevated portion of Interstate 794, arguing the city is passing up a rare opportunity to reshape downtown.
Mayor Johnson announced Wednesday that he will recommend the Wisconsin Department of Transportation keep the elevated freeway between downtown and the Historic Third Ward, saying traffic studies showed removing it could create gridlock, increase neighborhood traffic and affect freight access to Port Milwaukee.
“Now the advocates for bringing 794 to street level, they make some really valuable points,” Mayor Johnson said during his recommendation. “I agree if we’re dealing with a blank slate, that this sort of elevated freeway would be the farthest option from the best option for our downtown. The unfortunate part of that though, is that we’ve had decades of established traffic patterns,and that has limited our ability to make dramatic changes here.”
Rethink 794 volunteer and architect, Taylor Korslin, told WTMJ the group’s biggest concern is that the conversation has focused too heavily on traffic instead of the long-term benefits redevelopment could bring.
“They’ve let DOT run this discussion and not talked about the great benefits that would happen to connect these neighborhoods, to connect the lakefront to our Third Ward in downtown,” Korslin said. “This would be a transformational opportunity for Milwaukee, and we’re talking about cars on the street and not about big, bold visions.”
Johnson also argued comparisons to the former Park East Freeway are misleading because Interstate 794 carries significantly more traffic.
“Some have argued that removing the old park east freeway is a template for the changes to 794,” Mayor Johnson said. “But there’s one really big difference in that though. That’s that the Park East Freeway carried very little traffic so street level changes could accommodate the freeway’s removal. That’s just simply not the case for 794.”
Korslin disagreed, saying similar concerns were raised before the Park East Freeway was removed.
“Well, they didn’t think it carried less traffic back when this debate happened 20 years ago,” Korslin said. “For the Park East, it was fraught, and they said it was going to be gridlock. And the sewer PAC actually did an audit of DOT’s numbers and came back and said they were wrong and that traffic will work out. And it’s the same case here. The Clyborne Boulevard would carry less cars than Lincoln Memorial Drive. We are not talking about a lot of congestion here. The cars would disperse.”
Taylor also made other comments to WTMJ:
“It’s shortsighted and lacks vision, the highway “improvement” doesn’t improve the city.” says Taylor Korslin, “If you want to be bold about growing the city to a million people, and the ‘Year of Housing’, this is where you start. Thousands of people could live there.”
“In every highway-to-boulevard debate you hear the scare of “gridlock”, you heard it in the Park-East removal, and it’s echoed now, but gridlock doesn’t materialize, people adapt more than DOT predicts, and so will freight movement.”
“The next generation does not want to inherit a downtown with this elevated highway through it.”
“The so-called highway ‘improvement’ is a compromise that does not advance our city’s economic development, housing affordability, and tax-base generation, it’s would be a huge missed opportunity.”
“It’s disappointing because DOT shows removal is viable, that traffic would flow. If DOT shows it can work, how are we not jumping at this opportunity?”
“It takes bold leadership to see a brighter vision for Milwaukee, unfortunately highway “improvement” in this case, lacks improvement for the city, and we lack bold leadership on this.”
