MKE County
Lake Park Bridge Open For First Time In 6 Years
Pedestrians can once again cross the historic foot bridge in Lake Park.
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Pedestrians can once again cross the historic foot bridge in Lake Park. Back to the full article.
Photos - Page 2
The drive down that road was one of my favorites. It was short but unique. I hope it opens soon.
Thank you for contacting my office with this question. You’re correct, the Parks Department Executive Director gave a presentation to the Parks Committee in 2019 regarding ongoing work to reopen or convert Ravine Road.
Cost assessments were provided at the time for a number of different options being considered for Ravine Road (figures are not inflation adjusted):
In-kind road replacement – $1,040,000
Convert roadway to path – $515,000
One-way road with a bike/pedestrian path separated by barrier – $1,382,000
One-way road with a bike/pedestrian path separated by curb/vegetation clearing – $1,387,000
Close roadway, remove pavement, and restore native vegetation – $193,000
My colleague in the Parks Dept, Jeremy Lucas, also noted that their 5-year capital improvement program doesn’t have the planning & design for the road replacement scheduled until 2026. No decision will be made on Ravine Road without plenty of opportunities for community input.
Sheldon A. Wasserman
Supervisor, District 3
Chair, Parks & Culture Committee
(p) 414.278.4237
Seems they could easily re-open Ravine Road, as is, to pedestrian and bicycle traffic only. Remove the fencing from the top and replace it with low-profile barricades to prevent vehicle traffic from using it. Perhaps this is already planned and hasn’t been mentioned. Since the bridge itself no longer poses a hazard to travel underneath it, presumably it would be safe to re-open it.
And another question: The road was in use until its closure in 2016, IIRC. Has its condition deteriorated so much since then that it may no longer just be repaired and re-opened for vehicular traffic? Not clear what the holdup is on this except that one or two homeowners up top have objected to it. Ravine Road has been there, like the bridge above it, for over a hundred years. Never used much, frankly, by anyone travelling between Lake Drive above and Lincoln Memorial Drive below. But the curvy, steep ravine roadway always been kind of an interesting feature of Lake Park–and a fun little shortcut up (or down) the hill. Long past time to just re-open it.
Please just reopen the two way road it always was. The alternatives strike me as solutions to something that was never a problem. Driving up or down that stretch is one of the gems of the entire park system. There are multiple walking paths along the entire length of Lake Park. There is no need for another. It was envisioned as a street, so let’s not deviate from that wonderful plan. Re-open the road.