The ACLU is seeking a federal investigation of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and to block expansion of North-South I-94. The ACLU cites civil rights grounds in making its requests. More here.
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation’s 2009-11 budget request for work on the North-South I-94 and Zoo Interchange reconstruction projects is $766 million — or 95% of the entire cost of the Marquette Interchange project.
More here.
What do you think the combined impacts of the Waukesha’s desire to dump water into Underwood Creek and WisDOT’s desire to expand every freeway in this corner of the state?
The Underwood Creek passes under I-94 and US 45 in areas designated for potential freeway expansion under the Wisconsin Department of Transportation’s Zoo Interchange reconstruction plan. Even if WisDOT doesn’t technically expand the freeway, it will be adding a lot of concrete to the freeway and water runoff to the Underwood Creek under various reconstruction scenarios.
WisDOT, if it follows the abysmal precedent it set in its North-South I-94 reconstruction plan, will propose developing not-as-effective-as-they-should-be wetland replacement banks desperately needed in Milwaukee County in Walworth County instead, where they will not do a bit of good for the people living near or downstream from the Underwood Creek.
Add into the mix additional tens of thousands of gallons of treated wastewater sent into the river by Waukesha as part of its plan to return treated wastewater water to Lake Michigan.
All this is sure to increase the likelihood of flooding along Underwood Creek and, as UWM’s Great Lakes Water Institute notes, “Flooding problems have occurred in the UC (Underwood Creek) subwatershed.”
Attention, all citizens who took the time to give your input on the Final Environmental Impact statement for the North-South I-94 expansion project: the Wisconsin Department of Transportation played you for saps.
Yup, even before the public comment period began, highway officials were drafting a document giving the go-ahead to the project. (What’s not clear, though, is exactly who was doing the drafting. Was it the Federal Highway Administration, the agency that eventually issues the document, called a Record of Decision? Or was it CH2M Hill, a WisDOT consultant on the $1.9 billion, unfunded expansion project?)
Anyway, it certainly looks like those folks who thought the public input process was a sham were right. The decision, indeed, already had been made, according to WisDOT’s own records. More on this topic, including a link to the draft document, here.
Gas is up, driving is down. The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin Foundation, Inc., 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, Inc., Midwest Environmental Advocates, Inc., and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People -Milwaukee Branch want the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to take another look at the proposed I-94 North-South reconstruction project to determine whether added lanes are really needed. More information here.