I-94 widening will bring woes

By GRETCHEN SCHULDT

Posted: June 1, 2008

It's unfortunate that Wisconsin Department of Transportation Secretary Frank Busalacchi is rejecting his department's own finding that widening I-94 in Racine and Kenosha counties will not improve traffic flow. Busalacchi, instead, in his stubborn support of expansion, is investing his faith in a 5-year-old, politically driven, fundamentally flawed and inaccurate report by the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission.

Did I mention that SEWRPC put a road builder lobbyist on the committee overseeing the report and that the consulting firm that helped the agency determine that freeway expansion is needed is the same one that the DOT later hired to help it determine that freeway expansion is needed?

Here are the facts about the North-South I-94 expansion project:

• It will hurt the redevelopment of older commercial districts in Milwaukee, while spurring sprawl in southern suburbs.

• It will increase by 50% the impervious area devoted to the freeway in Milwaukee County, leading to more polluted runoff. The DOT, by the way, has not proposed any methods for dealing with potential flooding that results from the additional lanes.

• The proposed expansion will bring the freeway closer to homes and schools, especially in Milwaukee, subjecting residents and students to more illness-inducing pollutants.

• The expansion will make necessary the construction of more ugly sound walls. Conversely, it will increase traffic noise in areas that do not qualify for sound walls.

• The state hasn't even figured out how to pay for the project. It says only, "We'll figure it out later."

• The project will destroy a large amount of wetlands, and the state has not determined how to replace them in the affected river watersheds.

• The project will destroy needed floodplain.

• The project will increase greenhouse gases; the DOT is not proposing any mitigation of that issue.

• The project will provided only minimal traffic improvements throughout the corridor.

• The traffic projections the study uses are based on unrealistically low gas prices ($2.30 a gallon in 2005 with a 3% inflation rate built in - that's $2.51 in 2008).

And, of course, the project will eat up revenue needed for transit. Busalacchi says that highway money can't be used for transit, but that is an extremely cynical, misleading argument that he should be embarrassed to make. The state can reduce its highway spending and modify its budget to increase transit funding. It's that simple.

If the DOT doesn't engage in wasteful highway projects, it doesn't need highway money from a federal fund that is rapidly going broke anyway.

Gretchen Schuldt of Milwaukee is co-chair of Citizens Allied for Sane Highways.