8-Lane I-94 Expansion Is Worst for Carbon Emissions

Diverging diamond design for Stadium Interchange. Image from I-94 Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement.

In November, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) released its draft Greenhouse Gas Analysis for the Interstate 94 project in Milwaukee. This analysis clearly shows that the 8-lane alternatives and the alternatives with large interchanges are likely to result in more carbon emissions than the 6-lane alternatives with the Diverging Diamond Interchanges – by as much as 1,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

The draft greenhouse gas analysis likely also underestimated the difference between the alternatives because it failed to consider new induced traffic due to an expansion of lanes and did not consider transportation alternatives like transit, walking or biking – all of which are lower carbon alternatives. WisDOT’s earlier environmental analysis already found that the 8-lane versions will lead to more highway accident deaths and more unhealthy air pollution than the 6-lane alternatives.

The Federal Highway Administration requires state Departments of Transportation to prepare plans for greenhouse gas emission reductions for highways. We hope that WisDOT makes and then follows an ambitious emission reduction plan.

The Greenhouse Gas Analysis also attempts to discount environmental justice and civil rights concerns from highway expansion by noting that the minority proportion of the population within 1000 feet of the project corridor is similar to that of Milwaukee County as a whole. This completely ignores how segregated the state and the region are. This project is located in the most heavily racially segregated metropolitan region in the country. This stretch of the highway corridor has a larger proportion of Black and Hispanic residents than can be found in any other community in the region.

What does all of this mean? It’s simple – expanding I-94 to 8 lanes with a large interchange is the most harmful option that WisDOT has put forth for the 3-mile corridor. Environmental and civil rights advocates have been saying this for years. Wisconsin’s unsound transportation priorities should have been fixed decades ago. But now is the next best time. We are looking to the Evers Administration, Secretary Craig Thompson, WisDOT as a whole, and the Federal Highway Administration to make the right choice for our state, for racial justice, and for our climate: fix at six lanes and avoid an overbuilt interchange.

You can show your support by requesting a yard sign or signing up to learn more at fixatsix.org. Better yet, contact WisDOT and let them know you support Fix at Six.

Cassie Steiner, Sierra Club Wisconsin; Cheryl Nenn, Milwaukee Riverkeeper; Terry Wiggins, Earth Justice Ministry, First Unitarian Society of Milwaukee.