Milwaukee Wins $14 Million Grant To Rebuild, Reimagine Villard Avenue

W. Villard Avenue near N. 35th Street in March 2021. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

The City of Milwaukee will receive a $14.3 million federal grant to redesign W. Villard Avenue on the city’s North Side.

Senator Tammy Baldwin announced the grant award Friday afternoon in a press release, noting that it would include a Complete Streets vision for the commercial street.

“Improvements include raised bike lanes, raised intersections, curb extensions, bus bulbs, lighting and signal improvements, a pedestrian plaza, and other streetscaping enhancements,” said the Senator.

The award is one of three Baldwin announced Wisconsin would receive as part of the U.S. Department of Transportation‘s RAISE program. The annual discretionary grant program, formerly known as TIGER, recently saw its funding increased by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

“I voted for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law because it is updating our crumbling infrastructure to keep Wisconsinites safe, strengthen our supply chain, and create good-paying jobs,” said Baldwin. “I am proud to bring home this funding to southeastern Wisconsin to ensure that drivers, bikers, and walkers can safely get where they need to go and our economy can run smoothly.”

“This project is so important for several reasons. First, Milwaukee is dedicated to improving bicycling in our city. This grant advances the goal of increasing transportation options and improving the well-being of bicycle riders. All roadway users will benefit, too, because traffic will be calmed and reckless driving reduced,” said Mayor Cavalier Johnson in Baldwin’s release. “I greatly appreciate the work of Senator Baldwin and President Biden’s administration to make this project a reality.”

Johnson, going back to his time on the Common Council, has talked about Villard Avenue having the potential to be the city’s next Brady Street. It has the bones to do so, much like Brady Street is a historic commercial corridor on the Lower East Side, Villard Avenue served as a main street for the Village of North Milwaukee. The village was annexed by the city in 1929, and now bears the neighborhood name of Old North Milwaukee.

A city match of at least 20% is required to access federal funds through the program. The Wisconsin Department of Transportation is also receiving $15 million to advance the rehabilitation of Interstate 41, including add noise barriers between W. Burleigh Street and W. Silver Spring Drive in northwest Milwaukee County. The City of Kenosha will receive $5.5 million to design a bike trail extension that includes two bridges.

A Department of Public Works representative did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication and the project’s boundaries are not publicly listed.

The street runs from N. Green Bay Avenue near N. 19th Street to W. Appleton Avenue near N. 91st Street. The most urban stretch, also covered by the Villard Avenue Business Improvement District, is between N. Teutonia Avenue and N. 42nd Street.

The street is part of the city’s pedestrian high-injury network identified in a 2019 planning process. Baldwin’s March letter of support references protected bike lanes being added to the street to connect to Oak Leaf Trail. A new 20th Street Trail, running in a former interurban corridor, would have its northern terminus at W. Villard Avenue. Efforts to add new trails along W. Lincoln Creek Parkway would also end up connecting with W. Villard Avenue.

The city has twice before won TIGER grants, an earlier iteration of RAISE. It won a $21.5 million TIGER grant in 2010 to rebuild the Juneau Avenue bridge over the Milwaukee River. In 2015, it won a $14.2 million grant to extend the streetcar through The Couture to the lakefront. The city has failed several times to secure additional streetcar grants, which some officials have attributed to the fact that the lakefront extension is only just now being completed. An act of Congress was required to extend the grant funding.

For more on Villard Avenue’s history, see our 2016 City Streets column.