For the third time in as many months, Milwaukee residents can attend an informational meeting to get their questions answered about a major highway project.
But one question that Wisconsin Department of Transportation officials can’t answer is whether or how those or other local projects will be affected by the chaos swirling around federal funding under President Donald Trump’s administration.
The latest open-house session focuses on whether to renovate or remove the east-west stretch of I-794 Downtown, between the Marquette Interchange and the Hoan Bridge. At that session, from 4 to 7 pm Thursday, May 29, at the Milwaukee Marriott Downtown, WisDOT will narrow the options to doing nothing, rebuilding the freeway in its current form, and at least one plan each for tightening its footprint to free a few acres for development, or eliminating it altogether, opening as much as 18 acres for development and expanding Clybourn Street to handle more traffic.
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In March, WisDOT held two open houses to explain its plans for widening I-94 from six to eight lanes near the Stadium Interchange on the west side, a $1.74 billion project that could start later this year – but that faces a federal civil rights review. And at yet another open house in April, WisDOT announced it had winnowed to three the options for replacing the former Stadium Freeway North spur (State Highway 175, also on the west side) with a boulevard, along with the option of rebuilding it as is.
While the I-94 expansion is progressing toward construction, the I-794 and Highway 175 projects are still in the study stages. The Highway 175 options range from $123 million to $227 million. The I-794 project could cost around $300 million, with updated estimates for each option likely to be released Thursday.
Projects this large typically involve some federal transportation dollars. Federal cash accounted for $30 million of the $82 million appropriated for I-94 reconstruction in the state’s 2021-’23 budget, $80.8 million of $238.1 million in 2023-’25 and $98.9 million of the $300.7 million that Gov. Tony Evers is seeking in his 2025-’27 budget, for roughly one-third of overall funding. WisDOT did not respond to questions about whether any federal money is being used in the I-794 or Highway 175 studies.
But prospects for future federal money – and possibly even money already awarded – have been cast into uncertainty by multiple pronouncements from Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, a former Wisconsin congressman, as well as recent House action on Trump’s budget.
Trump and Duffy have upended federal priorities by trying to end spending on promoting diversity, equity and inclusion or social and environmental justice, and on combating climate change. Those plans could threaten numerous transportation grants, because grant applications often needed to include language supporting those now-disparaged goals to meet guidelines set by previous administrations, says Ben Crowther, policy director for America Walks.
The changing priorities could affect the I-94 civil rights review as well. Freeway expansion opponents have alleged the additional lanes would cause more air and water pollution for neighbors of color — many of whom don’t even own cars — while disproportionately benefiting white suburban commuters. But Trump, Duffy and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin have rejected considering environmental and social justice factors in infrastructure projects. The Sierra Club’s Wisconsin Chapter, a leading opponent of the widening, did not respond to emails seeking comment.
Duffy also has said his agency would favor communities with higher marriage and birth rates, which could work against Milwaukee. However, guidelines formalizing that policy have yet to be issued, Crowther says.
But what most alarmed state officials and transportation advocates was an April 24 letter that Duffy sent to “all recipients of U.S. Department of Transportation funding.” The letter threatened to cut off transportation funding unless recipients end all DEI efforts and cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
And while some of Duffy’s previous directives appeared to be aimed at the discretionary grants that USDOT awards on a competitive basis for specific projects, the letter was worded so broadly that it could include the larger stream of guaranteed federal dollars distributed through formulas based on factors like population, Streetsblog noted.
That prompted a lawsuit from 20 state attorneys general, including Wisconsin’s Josh Kaul, arguing that the administration was illegally imposing conditions that Congress did not set as requirements for receiving the funds that it appropriated.
In the first sentence of their complaint, filed May 13 in federal court in Rhode Island, the attorneys general say they are suing “to prevent the Trump Administration from trying to strong-arm them into participating in federal immigration enforcement by threatening to cut off billions of dollars in transportation funding if they refuse to comply.”
The lawsuit ticks off how much federal cash could be at stake for each state. For Wisconsin, it says annual aid averages $1.1 billion for highways, $120.4 million for transit systems, $9.6 million for truck and bus safety inspections and $7.4 million for traffic safety programs.
And that doesn’t count discretionary grants, such as the $1 billion that Wisconsin and Minnesota each won to replace the aging Blatnik Bridge, which carries I-535 over the St. Louis River to connect Superior and Duluth; the $38.6 million awarded to Illinois to help develop Amtrak’s new Borealis line from Chicago to Milwaukee to the Twin Cities; or the $4.1 million that Wisconsin received last year for airport improvements, the lawsuit says.
Meanwhile, other discretionary grants could be imperiled by the budget legislation that the House approved last week. That measure, which Trump has dubbed “the big beautiful bill,” is now under consideration by the Senate.
In its current form, the bill would rescind grants that were awarded but not yet obligated to be spent under the $1 billion Reconnecting Communities pilot program and the follow-up $3.1 billion Neighborhood Access and Equity program. Those programs were targeted particularly at rectifying the historic damage that highway projects have done to neighborhoods.
When County Executive David Crowley and Mayor Cavalier Johnson persuaded WisDOT to launch the Highway 175 replacement study in 2022, Crowley said the potential availability of Reconnecting Communities funding was a key factor. That project ultimately did not win a Reconnecting Communities grant.
However, three other Wisconsin projects did: Rebuilding a 2.6-mile stretch of Milwaukee’s 6th Street, along with studying how to reshape the I-43 ramps at National Avenue on the south side and how to extend Madison’s Perry Street over the Beltway.
According to Transportation for America, the National Avenue interchange and Perry Street planning grants appear to be safe because all of that money has been obligated. But the organization warns Milwaukee could be at risk of losing $34.5 million of the $36.6 million that it was awarded to cover the full cost of the 6th Street project, which would reduce traffic lanes to add protected bike lanes and wider sidewalks between West North and West National Avenues.
The 6th Street project is still in the planning stage. So far, Duffy has not paused Reconnecting Communities grants, and the Senate may refuse to claw back the funding, says Beth Osborne, interim president of Smart Growth America.
Also still in the planning stages are similar projects on 2.6 miles of West National Avenue, between South 1st Street and South 39th Street on the south side, and on 1.5 miles of West Villard Avenue, between North Sherman Boulevard and North 20th Street on the north side. Separate federal grants are expected to cover the full $14.3 million cost of the city-led Villard project and $36.8 million of the $52.6 million state-led National Avenue project, matched by $8.2 million from the state and $7.6 million from the city.
The Milwaukee Department of Public Works hasn’t heard anything about changes to funding for the 6th Street and Villard Avenue projects, but is monitoring the situation, spokeswoman Tiffany Shepherd says. WisDOT declined to comment on the funding status of any of the state-led projects, citing the ongoing litigation.
