Most of you know that a main route from the south side of Milwaukee to downtown was closed for construction on February 11. This is one of those things that recently caused a portion of the population to lose their minds, which I of course find hysterical. Let’s have some fun reviewing the dialog.
Keep in mind the following facts when you read the comments:
The work has been in the planning stage for more than two years and is part of a broader construction project improving 94 south of the airport and the Mitchell interchange. The timing is exactly as planned.
 |
The mess known as the Mitchell |
| Photo by Jim Palmer |
The route from the west to downtown will be closed through December 2011, about 10 months. Given the inconvenience for motorists, this is a long, long time. The traffic on the west bypass is now unbearable, and good luck taking the suggested alternates during rush hour. It is indeed a nightmare.
The DOT is putting a tunnel in the interchange so they can have the route accessed from the right, a DOT safety mandate, instead of from the left as its existed for many years. Again this has been a published part of their overall plan. And a tunnel was found to be the most efficient and effective option after years of study.
Electronic signs have been up for weeks letting people know the ramp would be closed from mid February until late 2011 and suggesting alternate routes. Yet hundreds if not thousands of people seemed to be completely unaware of this closure.
These people posted some wild comments when the closure was announced on our local daily newspaper’s web site. Here’s a sampling. And these are real, despite the fact that you may think I made them up to get a laugh.
“Wow. So the 27th street ramp will be closed. That kind of sucks. But not being able to jump on 94 easily is really a pain. I wonder why they chose a tunnel?”
“I am wondering why a tunnel as well…..what will snowplows do with the snow….continue through the tunnel? Then if there isn’t any snow in the tunnel, the plows will put it there just by going through. How will that mess melt in a tunnel…where there is no sun?”
“Tunnels hey? I thought Milwaukee learned their lesson with regard to tunnels. What a shame. I wonder how many $ will end up being wasted on this project?”
“There was a light at the end of the tunnel but they turned it out due to budget cuts.”
“Let’s abolish the DOT and put road builders in jail.”
“What a bunch of morons.”
“The big problem with this project is that the highways and the interchange were so poorly thought out and badly designed that we should find who were the idiot engineers who did this in the 1960’s and make them pay for it.”
“This is bad planning!”
“I can’t believe this money is being spent now?”
“Walker’s gone and he intentionally timed this mess so he would be in Madison and wouldn’t have to deal with it.”
“How come this was not known months ago, and why didn’t a collection of local officials pressure these DOT jerks to make it as brief as possible? Closing a major part of an intersection for a year on basically two days’ notice? Someone must think they are Hosni Mubarak.”
The DOT has been quite active in suggesting alternates as well, primarily Loomis-Howard-43/94. If you are just going to downtown, especially during peak times, I like Layton to 794. A little bumpy and a few lights, but relatively stress-free. I do wish that they’d raise the speed limit on 794 above 40mph though, that seems a little slow for a freeway-type road. But we’ll get through it and I bet we’ll grow to love the tunnel.
While the DOT may not have been perfect at communicating here, they did host listening sessions, publish their plans and post digital signs advising of the impending change. That obviously wasn’t enough for our brethren with their heads in the sand.
I thought I’d save my favorite comment regarding how people were going to handle the closure for last:
“I will take the high speed rail.”
How prophetic.
