I-94 interest will add hundreds of millions to cost; council, mayor pushes for transit

Dec. 17, 2007 -- Interest costs on bonding for rebuilding and expanding North-South I-94 will add hundreds of millions of dollars to the $1.9 billion cost the Wisconsin Department of Transporation is citing for the project, according to Citizens Allied for Sane Highways.

“WisDOT clearly has no intention of discussing the crippling cost of interest, because it's not in the agency’s ‘best interest’ to tell us,” CASH co-chair Robert Trimmier said.

Meanwhile, the Milwaukee Common Council adopted a measure pushing for rail transit instead of freeway expansion. Mayor Tom Barrett signed the measure on Thursday.

"We don't like the idea that KRM (Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter rail) isn't included," said Patrick Curley, Barrett's chief of staff. WisDOTs recommendation, he said, is "highways, highways, highways."

The state needs to look at other transportation modes, he said. "It's not an unusual phenomenon that states fund commuter modes of transportation," Curley said.

WisDOT is recommending expanding from six lanes to eight the interstate from the Illinois-Wisconsin state line to about Holt Ave. I-894 also would be expanded from I-94 to about 35th Street.

“We’ve got to get some accurate numbers for this massive project. WisDOT hasn’t been honest with the people who have to pay for it,” CASH co-chair Gretchen Schuldt said.

Borrowing $750 million at 5% interest for 20 years would cost the state about $440 million in interest alone, Schuldt said.

WisDOT officials say they will worry about how and how much state taxpayers will kick in for the project after it is approved by the Federal Highway Administration.

The $750 million figure, based on borrowing less than half the project’s cost, is only for illustrative purposes, Schuldt said. It is impossible to determine how much WisDOT will have to borrow, since the agency has not presented a funding plan and is depending on receiving huge sums from the Federal Highway Trust Fund, which is currently projected to be insolvent in a few years.

The agency is projecting a 3% annual inflation rate for the I-94 project, but the cost of road construction materials rose 7.8% from October 2006 to October 2007, according to the American Road & Transportation Builders Association. From 2003 to 2006, the cost of the materials rose 35%, according to the industry group.

“DOT would like us to believe it can make chicken salad from chicken waste, and serve it to us with a generous helping of cynicism on the side,” Trimmier said. “This is a slap in the face of pay-as-you-go government, and an insult to anyone who's mastered second grade arithmetic.”

Ald. Terry Witkowski, a freeway expansion suppoorter who represents the area that would be most negatively affected by WisDOT's expansion plan, defended the agency's proposal and said it was probably too late to affect the expansion recommendation.

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Witkowski

WisDOT is soliciting comments on its draft Environmental Impact Statement through Dec. 31. Witkowski, though, suggested that public comment would not matter to WisDOT.

"It would have been better to have this fight two years ago," Witkowski said.

At that time, WisDOT said no decisions on expansion recommendations had been made.

Ald Robert Bauman said he was assuming that WisDOT was telling the truth. ""Perhaps Ald. Witkowski knows something we don't know and that the public hearing process is a fraud," Bauman said.

"I take the department at face value that these public hearings have meaning, that public input is relevant, and that decisions have not secretly been made two years ago as to which option will be chosen," he said.

Full disclosure: Milwaukee Rising editor Gretchen Schuldt is a CASH co-chair.

Freeway plan increases runoff, paves over floodplain
Milwaukee County hit hardest

(Updated Nov. 23 to include information on grass ditch stormwater treatment.)

Nov. 21, 2007 -- The proposed $1.9 billion I-94 north-south expansion project would increase paved-over freeway land in the corridor by almost almost 50% in Milwaukee County, according to the draft Environmental Impact Statement for the project.

The amount of impervious I-94 freeway land would increase from 10.3 million square feet to 15.4 million square feet, a 49.7% increase, according to the EIS.

That is more than the combined pavement increases in Racine and Kenosha counties in Wisconsin and Lake County in Illinois, the other counties affected by the proposed expansion project.

"The amount of storm water runoff is expected to increase proportionately to the increase in impervious surface (that is, pavement)" according to the EIS.

The project overall would increase freeway-related pavement from 37 million square feet to 46.4 million square feet, a 25.4% increase.

Some of the Milwaukee County land to be filled -- about 174,000 square feet -- is floodplain, or land that is susceptible to flooding. Increasing the amount of land that cannot absorb water raises flooding risks.

Runoff from the hard surfaces of freeways is generally highly contaminated.

Chemical pollutants from cars can poison water, vegetation and associated aquatic life.

The document does not specify the steps the state would take to reduce pollution from the increased runoff. It says most storm water quality control in Milwaukee County would be achieved through grass ditches near the freeway.

The EIS also does not specify any steps the state would take to reduce potential flooding.

The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District is involved in major, expensive flood control and water quality efforts in the Milwaukee area. MMSD spokesman Bill Graffin said district officials say WisDOT has not been in touch with them about the North-South project.

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