Yet another sign that logic is prevailing and the city of Milwaukee is improving, the Menomonee Valley Partners have announced the construction of a pedestrian tunnel and bridge to link up the Menomonee Valley with the bordering Silver City neighborhood to the south.

While the sides of the valley are not unreasonably steep, they’re lined with pedestrian barriers. On the north side of the valley you have Interstate 94 blocking access for pedestrians, and on the south side you have the Menomonee River and railroad tracks. Jobs exist in the valley and more are coming, but getting people that don’t own cars to the jobs has been a challenge so far.

Previous attempts included the idea of attaching an elevator to the 35th Street viaduct that crosses the valley and having people use the small staircases attached to the 35th and 27th Street viaducts.

While the idea of a massive elevator sounds exciting, it doesn’t seem logical to have people standing out on the middle of a bridge in the winter waiting for an elevator when they could be walking along a path on the valley floor.

In short, this is the information you need to know about why this development makes sense…

“For the people who are living in the neighborhood right around the (Menomonee) Valley to access the jobs or recreational value of the valley, it’s about a three-mile walk,” said Menomonee Valley Partners Executive Director Laura Bray. “This will make it less than two blocks.”

Linking central city residents with jobs through public/private development partnerships is just one of the many reasons that I believe that urban Milwaukee is on the right track.

You can see this kind of "intelligent design" with developments like the 6th Street Viaduct, the Canal Street extension, and perhaps most impressively the Marsupial Bridge under the Holton Ave Viaduct.

Construction won’t actually start until 2009, which is unfortunate, but the connection will undoubtedly be of benefit to both ends of the connection. CSA Commercial is renovating a building on the Silver City neighborhood-side of the tunnel to be turned into an office building, which will help kick-start development in the area.