Port Officials Have Concern With Potential I-794 Removal

Interstate 794 in 2008 with Port Milwaukee in background. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

The City of Milwaukee will ultimately need to take a formal position on the different options for the reconstruction of Interstate 794 through Downtown and the Historic Third Ward. But the desire to see an elevated freeway replaced with developable land, as the new Downtown Plan endorses, might crash head-on into concerns of the city-owned port to the south.

The Board of Harbor Commissioners received a briefing Thursday morning on the Wisconsin Department of Transportation‘s (WisDOT) planning process.

The chief concern, according to port director Jackie Q. Carter, is that the port could lose business under a freeway-to-boulevard plan.

The Hoan Bridge and the port on-off ramps at the south end of the bridge would stay under any scenario under consideration by WisDOT, but one of the four options would see the connection between the bridge and Marquette Interchange replaced by a boulevard. As a result, WisDOT officials said Thursday, the Hoan Bridge would lose its Interstate designation.

“When you talk about removing the badge of the highway, we won’t be intermodal because we’re not connected directly to the Interstate. We have to look at what that means for us being called a port,” said the port director.

Harbor commissioners asked what details were available about existing truck and passenger traffic. WisDOT representatives said they did not have finalized diversion models yet. Carter said the port also did not have detailed trip data on trucks, but had previously made some preliminary estimates.

Port Milwaukee, nor WisDOT officials, had information readily available about how much truck traffic from the port currently enters and exits from the west using E. Bay and E. Becher streets to access Interstate 43/94. Google Maps recommends using that route for any destination to the south, including the Interstate 43 corridor to the southwest.

The Becher Street ramps are 1.5 miles west of the port along streets built for truck traffic, while the Interstate 794 ramps are located directly at the port’s exit.

“What my primary concern is, what I think our teams would be, because we are competing with ports that are close in proximity to us, does that make us less competitive because there are ports around that have greater access and less concerns with trucks?” said Carter. “Sometimes we make deals on margins, and that margin could now be a trucker’s opinion of how they get to and from the port.”

Chicago’s municipal port is approximately 1.7 miles from Interstate 90.

“It’s delicate. [WisDOT] is taking all of these things into consideration, we have been communicating with them. I think everybody is doing the best they can to capture all of that. We just have to keep working at it,” said Carter.

Commissioners also had questions about how the freeway-to-boulevard option would work on E. Clybourn Street, which would become a two-way street and absorb much of the traffic.

“One of the issues has been connecting Downtown with the Third Ward, which has been pretty much achieved with the passages underneath. Would you have to start over?” asked Commissioner Ron San Felippo.

“As a Third Ward business owner, this looks connected to me, Ron. It looks more connected than now,” said Commissioner Craig Mastantuono of the several new street connections.

Project officials from WisDOT and consulting firm HNTB said that whatever the selected option, the rebuild would be designed to reduce the high-speed offramps that create five-way intersections by using slip lanes, such as at N. Milwaukee Street and N. Broadway. “These ideas are forcing more deliberate movements,” said HNTB project manager Mike Ernst of the tighter, slower turns contemplated. The result is intended to be more pedestrian-friendly and improve safety.

The ramps on the lakefront would also be reconfigured under any option. “We all know that intersection at Clybourn and Lincoln Memorial can be kind of confusing,” said WisDOT project manager David Pittman. “You don’t know where you’re going sometimes.”

Additional public meetings next year will be centered on a review of a narrowed list of proposals: one freeway-to-boulevard option and two reconstruction options that would narrow the footprint of the roadway by removing ramps or reducing the space between the east-west spans. A rebuild-as-is option is also being prepared as a baseline.

“There are a lot of competing interests out here, there is a lot of opportunity and we’re just early in the design phase, we don’t know what everything is going to look like,” said Ernst.

“I am pretty happy with how it’s going,” said Carter. “We are trying to really think of it from every angle and realize that we’re not the only people that are going to be impacted.”

The project, expected to cost over $300 million, is formally to rebuild the elevated freeway between N. Water Street and the Hoan Bridge, but last year the Rethink 794 coalition called for the state agency to formally study replacing Interstate 794 between N. 6th Street and the Hoan Bridge with a boulevard. The freeway segment to be rebuilt consists of 28 structures that were constructed in the 1970s and not replaced as part of the Marquette Interchange or Hoan Bridge redecking projects.

Additional details on the reconfiguration proposals can be found in our earlier coverage.

Freeway Options

Removal Options

As-Is Rebuild

3D Renderings