WisDOT Talks Hippos And "Boxes," Shows Zoo Interchange Traffic-Free

My copy of the official WisDOT Fall 2013 "Zoo Interchange Newsletter" came in the mail.

It's not on the official WisDOT Zoo Interchange website yet, perhaps because the agency doesn't have the capacity to digitize such a wasteful, misleading and distorted load of you-know-what.

"Hold on to your hard hat, construction is in full swing on the Zoo Interchange!"

Did WisDOT run this by another office funmeister, Cathy Stepp?

And who outside of conservative interns volunteering on campaign staffs would pile this many buzzwords in a single sentence?

"These are critically-needed freeway projects that contribute to the quality of the statewide system providing the mobility that people and businesses need to be successful."

Then there are the graphics accompanying maps in the newsletter's six glossy pages, including:

*  A half-page colorful rendering of the "redesigned Watertown Plank Road interchange" - - or what appears to be a huge complex floating in a green sea (grass?) for the launching and landing of inter-galactic freighters, perhaps on the planet Pandora. Amazingly, there is not a vehicle of any kind anywhere. Congestion, solved!

* A quarter-page "rendering of the railroad bridge over I-94." Blue skies, a few puffy clouds, four spiffy, squeaky-clean box cars on a bridge and, again, not a single car or truck on the new freeway below. So tell me again why are we building all these new lanes?

*  A two-inch tan box with this "RAILROAD FUN FACT: "The existing railroad bridge over I-94 weighs over 1.2 million pounds -- about the same as 200 hippopotami." Accompanied by a cartoon of a hippopotamus. And by the way, who computes the big item weights in units of hippopotami?

*  Finally, WisDOT introduces us to a clunky new way of thinking about the local roads as opposed to  "mainline freeway." OK, I get the difference.

But WisDOT wants us to think of local roads as "the box."

"The Zoo Interchange project is more than just the core in the middle. It is a combination of mainline freeway from Burleigh to Lincoln, and 124th to 70th; and local road and service interchanges in between. 

"In 2013/14, WisDOT is starting with the reconstruction of local roads to get them ready for traffic during and after freeway construction. Think of it as "the box" of local roads around the core of the interchange. 

"This "box" of local roads will keep area traffic flowing during the major freeway construction."

Just drop all those box references. The sentences make perfect sense without them.