Business Leaders Support I-94 Upgrade
East-west corridor is a bottleneck and a drag on economic activity.
I-94 Expansion Rendering from 2017. Rendering from WisDOT.
It is well past time to modernize the I-94 East-West Corridor, which is vital to Southeast Wisconsin and the entire state’s economy.
Originally built almost 60 years ago, the East-West corridor of I-94 connects the Marquette and Zoo interchanges. This stretch, which runs for three and a half miles between 16th and 70th Streets, has more than 20,000 businesses, 310,000 jobs, and 540,000 residents located within a five-mile radius of its center.
Improving the East-West Corridor is necessary to reap the benefits of the $2.5 billion the state and federal governments have spent reconstructing the Marquette and Zoo interchanges. Commuters and businesses cannot take full advantage of these interchanges’ utility if the roadway between them is deteriorated, congested, and outdated. Which it is.
The current bottleneck between the two interchanges serves as a drag on economic activity and is a safety concern. The East-West traffic load is tens of thousands of vehicles a day more than it was designed to handle, making it one of the most congested and dangerous roadways in the state.
Anyone who has driven this segment knows it is in rough shape and that chronic congestion and unreliability have led many motorists to rely on local roads more and more. Piecemeal, stop-gap maintenance becomes more expensive and less effective over time and does not solve the underlying safety and traffic-flow issues.
An enhanced corridor will relieve congestion, improve traffic operations, lessen delays from crashes, and increase travel speeds, thereby reducing emissions and benefiting regional air quality.
We appreciate the bipartisan support this project has received, including Governor Evers’ announcement this summer that the state is taking steps to obtain federal approval to resume the I-94 East-West Corridor project.
We strongly support the I-94 East-West project’s enumeration in the next biennial state budget, along with sufficient funding to keep the project on schedule for a 2029 completion date.
This corridor is too essential to the region and the state for more short-term fixes. We have waited long enough. It is time to move forward with a plan to reconstruct the I-94 East-West Corridor.
Steve Baas is the Senior Vice President, Governmental Affairs for the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, MMAC.
Tracy Johnson is the President and CEO of the Commercial Association of REALTORS® Wisconsin, CARW.
Suzanne Kelley is the President and CEO of the Waukesha County Business Alliance, WCBA.
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The Op-Ed does not mention climate change at all.
Bottleneck, schmottle-neck. There’s no bottleneck in this corridor. One or two times a day there’s a little too much traffic through there. Simpler solution would be for silly drivers that insist on the route to open their brains to new possibilities and find an alternate route (Bluemound Drive, anyone? Greenfield and National Ave? North Ave? Lincoln Ave? Even Capitol Drive just a little further north….). Better still, get your employers to agree to a slightly later or earlier start and quit times and take the expressway if you’re addicted to it. It’s almost 2021. Time to get out of the bad habit of thinking the only cure for traffic jams is to make the dang roads bigger. Sheez.
There’s no “bottleneck” in this corridor. It’s four lanes both directions all the way through. One or two times a day for half an hour there’s a little too much traffic through there. Simpler solution would be for silly drivers that insist on the route to open their brains to new possibilities and find an alternate route (Bluemound Drive, anyone? Greenfield and National Ave? North Ave? Lincoln Ave? Even Capitol Drive just a little further north….). Better still, get your employers to agree to a slightly later or earlier start and quit times and take the expressway if you’re addicted to it. It’s almost 2021. Time to get out of the bad habit of thinking the only cure for traffic jams is to make the roads bigger.
What about induced demand? We adapt to our built environment. We don’t need ever expanding roads. In most cases that strategy has been woefully ineffective at actually mitigating traffic and congestion for cities. We need better options that more efficiently utilize our existing infrastructure and don’t actively contribute to the destruction of our climate.
Why tear up more of our neighborhoods? When the DOT first proposed this they admitted the issue was not drivers going through the city but going downtown. So why not make a diagonal from the northwest to
Downtown – like currently Fond du Lac Ave. – and a diagonal from southwest to Downtown? Why must we funnel all traffic through the same freeway?
And why must we only consider cars and trucks? Why not spend some money on rapid transit buses or trains? Where are all these additional drivers going to park when they get downtown anyway?
The authors of this piece are listed as:
Steve Baas is the Senior Vice President, Governmental Affairs for the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, MMAC.
Tracy Johnson is the President and CEO of the Commercial Association of REALTORS® Wisconsin, CARW.
Suzanne Kelley is the President and CEO of the Waukesha County Business Alliance, WCBA.
Undoubtedly they have limited their research to statements, comments and press releases that their organizations and others of a similar vein issued 10 or more years ago when this topic was on the front page of business sections everywhere.in S.E. Wisconsin.
They have presented absolutely no new justification or rational for their argument than those that I read then.
A drag on economic activity is the continued ignoring of the need for mass transit for travel throughout Southeast WI. The drag of added automobile pollution on the health of MKE’s citizens and on the data on the just released baseline emissions report from the Joint City County Committee on Climate and economic equity will …well, be a real drag on meeting the goals of reduced emissions…a real drag on the physical health of citizens… and a real drag on meeting the mitigation goals for slowing collapse of Earth’s operation system!
Got it: Have a weight problem? Get bigger pants.