Oak Leaf Trail Temporarily Closed in Tosa
A section of trail providing safe crossing of Highway 100 is temporarily closed.
(Left)Trail detour. (Right) Oak Leaf Trail network.
A critical section of the Oak Leaf Trail running along the Root River Line has been temporarily closed.
The trail runs underneath Highway 100 in Wauwatosa, offering bicyclists and pedestrians a safe crossing underneath the six-lane state trunk highway.
Milwaukee County Parks closed the trail under Highway 100 to perform maintenance on a bridge, but the closure was recently extended into the “foreseeable future” as engineering crews “inspect and repair structural concerns” along the bridge.
There’s a metal cover over the bridge, but Parks doesn’t want Oak Leaf Trail users crossing the bridge right now “out of an abundance of caution,” Peter Bratt, director of skilled trades and operations told Urban Milwaukee.
Parks has suggested a detour on its interactive Oak Leaf Trail map, with trail users crossing Highway 100 along W. Watertown Plank Road.
The Root River Line, which is now cut off at Highway 100, runs north and south through the southwestern quarter of the county. It offers connections to other sections of the more than 135-mile trail network.
Parks is currently working on an ambitious 10-mile expansion of the Oak Leaf Trail network, with 6 miles of new trail already in varying stages of development. Alongside that effort, the department is seeking public input on the future of trails and has created a web page allowing local residents to provide comments on the trail initiative, as well as feedback on existing trail projects.
Existing members must be signed in to see the interactive map. Sign in.
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That’s a pretty awful detour
I am glad that the County is looking at expanding the trail network. However, I have not seen any County action that would indicate that the officials are looking at the current experiences that walkers/bikers have on the trail and actions that could be taken to improve the experience. Persons walking are tired of cyclists, many on heavy bikes, zooming past them at 20 mph with no warning. Slower moving cyclists also have that experience. A simple action like painting a yellow line in the middle of high used sections could get persons to stay to the right or signs like we see in Lakeshore State Park reminding persons to alert others while passing. At any time during the week days or weekends during the summer, the Oak Leaf Trail is probably the most high used recreational asset of Milwaukee County Parks and gets the least attention relating to the user’s experience.