Milwaukee Plans To Construct 60 Traffic Calming Projects in 2025

Mayor Cavalier Johnson speaks at 2025 traffic calming press conference. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Orange barrel season is here and with it will come a series of new raised crosswalks, protected bike lanes, road diets, roadway reconstructions and safer routes to schools.

The City of Milwaukee is planning to expend tens of millions of dollars in 2025 constructing 60 traffic calming projects. Projects include reconstructing more than two miles of W. Lisbon Avenue, building a new 20th Street Powerline Trail, adding protected bike lanes to several roadways and making targeted traffic calming improvements near schools, trails and parks.

“These projects are all a part of our ongoing efforts to reduce reckless driving and encourage more people to walk, to use transportation alternatives such as bikes, scooters and other means,” said Mayor Cavalier Johnson at a press conference Friday morning at N. 86th Street and W. Lisbon Avenue.

“This street has long, long, long, long needed repair and we’re excited not only to be reconstructing the pavement, but also adding some very important traffic calming safety features,” said the mayor of the project between N. 100th and W. Burleigh streets. The road will be narrowed from four lanes to two, raised, separated bike lanes will be added, curb extensions will reduce pedestrian crossing distances and raised crosswalks are intended to slow vehicles at key intersections. Two bike-friendly roundabouts, the first in the city of the specific design, are to be installed at N. 84th and N. 92nd streets. “All these improvements, they’ll make Lisbon Avenue safer, a more vibrant place for everyone who lives, works and travels through this area.”

“These projects are essential, not just for improving our roads, but protecting lives,” said area Alderwoman Lamont Westmoreland, who arrived at the press conference via bicycle.

Westmoreland, the council’s most outspoken advocate for curbing reckless driving, said he didn’t enjoy having to expend all of the money. “Now let me be clear, I wish we could be using these funds and resources elsewhere, but we don’t have a choice.”

The alderman said he wasn’t talking about strings attached to the money, but how people behave. “If people didn’t drive reckless, if people didn’t drive like idiots, obviously [we could] direct that elsewhere,” said the alderman. He said with better behavior, the city could afford to repave even more streets.

“We have drivers, we have pedestrians, we have young people, we have our elders that are here wanting to have a safer Milwaukee,” said Alderwoman Sharlen P. Moore, whose district includes the south end of the Lisbon Avenue project. “We get the calls, we get the emails, we get it all, and this is an opportunity for us to come together to say, ‘you know what, we believe in safer streets and we believe in an opportunity for our community to be able to ride on our streets safely.'”

“Improvements are coming to every part of our city,” said City Engineer Kevin Muhs in highlighting a series of projects that included a narrowing of N. 60th Street near Mill Road, building the 20th Street bike trail in a utility corridor and installing the city’s first “bioswale-protected” bike lane on N. Jefferson Street in Downtown and the Historic Third Ward.

“The work that we do on infrastructure and engineering is one thing, but it’s not the only thing,” said Johnson. “This is part of the ‘all of the above’ approach that we try to employ in the city to address issues around safety on our roadways.” The mayor said education and enforcement are also important to “make sure our streets are safe for everybody and ultimately that’s the goal.”

The city has a Vision Zero goal of eliminating deaths on roadways within a decade. Data released in early 2024 showed that the city has seen substantial success in reducing speeds, a key driver in collision severity, with its projects. “Speed is directly correlated to safety and we’ve some good results,” said Muhs Friday.

In addition to the Vision Zero policy, Johnson declared reckless driving a public safety crisis as his first act in office in 2021.

Funding for the 2025 projects is to come from a variety of sources, including general city borrowing, assessments on neighboring property owners, tax incremental financing districts, state and federal formula funding allocations and the federal American Rescue Plan Act.

Johnson and Muhs said the city is closely monitoring changes the Trump administration is making. An internal U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) memo, released this week, suggests funding for several future projects at risk with a focus on discretionary awards and non-automotive amenities.

“This is something that not just Milwaukee, but all governments, whether it’s local governments or state governments, are concerned about,” said Johnson. There is not a scalpel that’s being taken to federal departments, it’s a sledgehammer.”

The formula-funded projects work on a reimbursement process said Muhs, with the city fronting the cash and the federal government, via the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, reimbursing the city.

“At this point, we’re been working closely with [WisDOT],” said Muhs. “They have no reason to believe any of these are at risk at this point and we wouldn’t be starting construction if we thought they were.”

The internal memo about discretionary projects indicated the USDOT was not seeking to clawback funding where there were signed project agreements.

It is not guaranteed that all of the projects will start in 2025. In 2024, the city announced 45 projects would be constructed but only completed or started construction on 34.

Approximately 12 of the projects were carried over into 2025. That includes, said Muhs, partially complete projects like the reconstruction of N. Lake Drive on the East Side and the installation of raised crosswalks near schools as well as delayed projects like the construction of a protected on-street Kinnickinnic River Trail through the Harbor District. The City Engineer told Urban Milwaukee that of the $83 million budgeted for 2024, approximately $68 million was expended.

Projects like Lisbon Avenue, which will be constructed across two years, will reappear again in the 2026 list.

There will be more urgency to make sure certain projects happen in 2025. It is the second to last year the city can rely on federal American Rescue Plan Act funding. The pandemic-recovery funding, which has supported a wide variety of government programs locally and nationally, must be expended by the end of 2026 or returned. It can no longer be reallocated to new projects.

The Department of Public Works website contains a map of past, present and future infrastructure projects.

2025 Project Map

2025 Milwaukee Traffic Calming Projects. Image from Department of Public Works.

Photos