Top Stories Milwaukee

State officials have rejected a request from the City of Milwaukee to extend the public comment period on plans to expand the Zoo Interchange, but letters critical of the project – and its extra-wide shoulders – have flowed into state Department Transportation offices, regardless. The latest accuse the project of discriminating against minorities in Southeastern Wisconsin and failing to minimize environmental damage.

City officials asked to delay the comment period’s deadline (April 4) so the Milwaukee Common Council could pass additional comments at its April 12 meeting. Both aldermen and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, whose Department of Public Works submitted a letter by the deadline, have criticized the extra-wide shoulders included in DOT plans.

Nearing the Zoo Interchange (photo by AA Roads)

They would span 18-feet and could later be converted to additional lanes, thereby transforming Interstate 94 east and west of the interchange from six to eight lanes, an expansion the city vehemently opposed during public hearings in 2009.

DOT has championed the shoulders as part of a “Reduced Impact Alternative” drafted in response to those hearings. It reduces the number of buildings that would need to be demolished to make way for the expanded interchange.

But some groups, including Midwest Environmental Advocates, an environmental law firm with offices in Madison and Milwaukee, argue the impact is still too great. A letter from Senior Counsel Dennis Grzezinski says the remodeled interstate would offer “the most generous highway shoulders around” while encroaching on local wetlands, parkways and public land.

According to his letter, the expansion would eliminate an acre and a half of wetlands and require the installation of stormwater detention ponds in the Honey Creek and Underwood Creek parkways and in another location that would force re-routing of the Hank Aaron State Trail.

Also, the expanded shoulders, planned for the interstate’s median, would worsen stormwater runoff in the area, he writes. “If existing flooding and water quality problems in the Milwaukee area are to be reduced, it is essential that impervious areas be reduced, not dramatically expanded, as (the DOT) has proposed.”

tom barrett

DOT plans note, however, that the state department and the Federal Highway Administration “are evaluating several best management practices to minimize the amount of runoff that enters water bodies,” including ways to slow down the runoff and reduce the pollution it washes off the highway.

Another letter, signed by the Black Health Coalition of Wisconsin, the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin and Midwest Environmental Advocates, faults the project for widening the gap between state highway and transit funding.

Because minority commuters are more likely to use public transit, the groups say, the project worsens an existing discriminatory imbalance in public funding.

“Persons of color do not commute from (or to) the northern or western suburbs at anything approaching the frequency of whites,” the letter says. “Suburban county residents, and thus their commuters, are almost exclusively white.”

In its plans, DOT addresses this issue, noting that (according to 2000 Census data) most African Americans and Hispanics in Southeastern Wisconsin commute by car, 79 and 88 percent, respectively, although the number is still higher for whites at 95 percent.

The group’s letter also faults Gov. Scott Walker for proposing new state funding for highway projects while cutting dollars for public transit. His 2011-13 budget includes $225 million for the Zoo Interchange project (which would cost a total $1.7 billion under the plan favored by the state) but cuts local transit aid by 10 percent.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.