Parks Finishes Road-to-Trail in Wauwatosa

(Left to right) Guy Smith, Sup. Shawn Rolland and Mayor Dennis McBride at ribbon cutting for Underwood Creek trail. Photo by Graham Kilmer.

It used to be just a road. Now it’s a multiuse trail.

On Friday, Milwaukee County Parks cut the ribbon on a new section of the Oak Leaf Trail in Wauwatosa. The department converted about three-quarters of a mile of the Underwood Creek Parkway to a multiuse trail and rebuilt the rest of the degraded roadway where it loops around the northern end of the county grounds.

Between roughly N. Swan Boulevard and the UW-Extension Firefly Ridge Garden, the parkway is now a trail. The parkway is no longer a throughway for motor vehicles, which will greatly reduce vehicle traffic for pedestrians and cyclists traveling through, though you can still drive into the park. The project was Parks’ second major road-to-trail conversion after finishing a 0.8-mile conversion of the Menomonee River Parkway in 2025.

“This project is a great example of improving infrastructure while expanding recreational opportunities and protecting our natural resources,” Milwaukee County Parks Director Guy Smith said.

The department has a policy of trying to reduce pavement wherever possible throughout the parks system. Roadway and parking lot maintenance is a drag on the department’s limited resources. Long term, Parks wants to convert more roadways to trails, which are cheaper to maintain. Reducing paved surfaces also reduces stormwater runoff and the urban heat island effect.

The converted Underwood Creek Parkway adds more dedicated trail to the Root River line of the Oak Leaf Trail network. The parkway was closed for several years during the reconstruction of I-41, and the state provided the county a $287,000 grant to mitigate the effects of the project. The grant was applied to the approximately $3.8 million design and construction of the trail and parkway.

Sup. Shawn Rolland, whose supervisory district includes the parkway, said constituents have reached out to him about fixing the parkway more than any other issue in the district. The roadway was a “pot-hole-filled problem,” he said, adding that the new trail and roadway “will improve park infrastructure, restore access to popular destinations, and support environmental sustainability.”

Wauwatosa Mayor Dennis McBride called the new trail “sort of a miracle.” He explained that the state has not provided Milwaukee County with the funding it needs to provide adequate services and amenities for residents.

“So to provide this sort of amenity with all the demands that the county has, and the low level of funding that it gets back from Madison for what we send up there, it’s almost a miracle that this sort of thing happens,” he said.