WTMJ-TV 4 took a break from its snowcastic overkill and noted all the darn road work in our area.
Missing from the discussion: that that Zoo Interchange overhaul to cut a few seconds off Waukesha commutes in and out of Milwaukee won't end until 2018.
In fact, if you click through the links in the story to "all the changes to the interchange," you get a mere five graphic slides that take you only into 2014. All changes: hardly.
And the best part of the WisDOT supplied graphic of the final result?
Virtually no traffic. Over more green space than Central Park.
Also missing from the discussion is that the congestion could have been minimized by the light rail line planned in the same corridor but killed by anti-city right wingers including Tommy Thompson, Waukesha officials and talk radio hosts more than ten years ago.
During which time also there may be connecting work underway at Story Hill just west of Miller Park, VA graves and two Jewish cemeteries the state pledged never to disturb - - but expanding I-94 at or above that spot is a Walker priority stick-in-the-eye to neighnorhoods that voted heavily for Tom Barrett.
Or not build it at all and keep a 50 year old, falling apart, outdated, unsafe design and let the congestion keep piling up for traffic and freight from everywhere from the Fox Cities and Madison to Racine, Kenosha, and Chicago. This project would be happening whether Walker, Barrett, Kathleen Falk, or Karl Marx were governor. Highways versus transit is a false dichotomy.
ReplyDeleteHighways without transit is the problem. No balance. No alternatives. No choice.
ReplyDeletethere are development and transit solutions that are more thoughtful and reasonable than "pour all the concrete!"
ReplyDeleteOf course, a large part of the problem, as James points out, is that Thompson also set up just this situation by killing any non-road-building solutions during his tenure, so now that things have deteriorated ('crumbling'? how about let's discuss the slashing of infrastructure maintenance spending of all kinds for thirty years. The condition of the Zoo interchange is not a result of it's age alone, but more primarily the deferred maintenance, which has been largely used for corporate giveaways and tax breaks for the wealthy) the prior actions have left little in the way of options.
Hear, hear, James and ZRM. No arguing from me about any of that. We're paying for a lot of shortsightedness and bad decisions. I'm just tired of the Zoo Interchange being slammed as solely benefiting commuters from the western suburbs. Around 55,000 people commute from Milwaukee County to Waukesha County, not much less than the 62,000 or so from Waukesha County to Milwaukee County, and I bet a lot of them will get some benefit from the project, too.
DeletePeople have made the choice, and it is to drive themselves.
ReplyDeleteI'll admit that trains were popular in the late 18 and early 1900s, but stop trying to take us back in time.
People want automobiles and roads.
Or to the miner on the state flag, circa 1848.
ReplyDeleteTrains are still popular. The Milwaukee-Chicago run is doing record business,
Also, people had the choice made for them, by land development and zoning planning during the post-war era, and the effective regulatory capture of the transportation planning process by the road-building industry.
ReplyDeletethree of four generations of people who have not had the choice of mass transit, and voila! Suddenly noboody thinks in term of mass transit anymore. But for some, it's a mystery how this happened, so it must be The Invisible Hand! Or maybe John Galt. Some imaginary entity, in any case.
And the best part of the WisDOT supplied graphic of the final result?
ReplyDeleteVirtually no traffic. Over more green space than Central Park.
A while back, I saw a thin book from the engineering firm for the original Marquette interchange, that did the exact same thing. All new cars, the few that were shown, lots of sunshine and plantings and grass. The illustrations you link to look almost the same, although I imagine the cars are more modern.
Look, if the zoo interchange was carrying the amount of traffic indicated, there would be no need to re-configure it.
"I'll admit that trains were popular in the late 18 and early 1900s, but stop trying to take us back in time."
ReplyDeleteThis is the kind of moronic twaddle that makes it impossible to be a self respecting engineer and a republican at the same time.
I've noticed software engineers tend to have a nasty Libertarian streak.
ReplyDelete