Hampshire Street Oak Leaf Trail Ramp Might Finally Be Built

Oak Leaf Trail Access Ramp to UW-Milwaukee. Image from Milwaukee County Parks.

A long-awaited Oak Leaf Trail project may finally move forward.

Milwaukee County Parks is seeking funding in the 2025 county budget for a new access ramp connecting the Oak Leaf Trail directly to E. Hampshire Street on Milwaukee’s East Side. The project would create a safer, more direct commute for bicyclists and pedestrians traveling to UW-Milwaukee and it would fix a tunnel causing sinkholes along the trail.

The department has gone after funding at the state and federal level for the project, estimated to cost approximately $1.85 million. In 2022, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) awarded the county a $1.3 million Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) grant for the project. Now the Parks is asking county policymakers for the 20% matching cost (approximately $540,000) so it can use the grant and move the project forward.

A 2025 county budget won’t be finalized and signed until November, but the project was ranked as a priority by the parks department for 2025 and it is currently scoring high on the county’s list of infrastructure projects for 2025, based on criteria used by the county’s ad-hoc Capital Improvements Committee (CIC).

“A new trail access ramp at Hampshire Avenue would provide a much safer and direct connection to the campus of the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and the 135-mile Oak Leaf Trail system while also addressing an old tunnel that threatens the existing trail,” according to a project summary from Parks. “This ramp would increase bicycle and walking commute rates to campus for students, staff, and the community; improve safety; and reduce driving rates.”

Residents of the local neighborhood and the university have been requesting a trail ramp at this location for about a decade, according to the department.

There are already two access points north and south of the UW-Milwaukee campus. One is a ramp near the Urban Ecology Center and Riverside University High School, but using it requires crossing E. Locust Street, a busy road. The northern access point is near E. Providence Avenue.

But the project was never just about another trail ramp. Parks has always envisioned the project as a way to solve two infrastructure problems with one grant.

The former Schlitz Brewery Ice House Tunnel runs below the trail in this area, and the aging tunnel has created several sinkholes along the trail. When devising the project, the department included fixing the sinkholes within the scope of work for the trail connection when it began applying for grants, as Urban Milwaukee previously reported.

The project is heading into budget season for the county in a favorable position. It is currently ranked well and the county has a 2026 deadline to use the grant. But nothing is certain.

Policymakers will have to close a projected 2025 budget gap at the outset, and the county is currently on track to overspend its 2024 budget. It’s likely supervisors will be voting on budget cuts on the operations side, while they jostle for the limited infrastructure funding the county has available.

The county’s total list of infrastructure needs in 2025 is estimated at approximately $139.3 million. But, with statutory limits on bonding and material limits on cash financing, the county will only have approximately $57.4 million available.

This leaves a $82 million list of projects that will not receive funding. Last year, supervisors were able to spread extra funding from the new 0.4% sales tax around their districts, leading to spending on infrastructure projects — largely in the parks system — unprecedented in recent years.

Will the Hampshire trail ramp survive the new budgetary climate? That won’t be answered until November.

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