Zoo Interchange
Ugh.
MADISON — State officials are proposing to delay reconstruction on the busiest interchange in Wisconsin: the Zoo Interchange near Milwaukee.
The idea was detailed in a budget request released this month from the Department of Transportation after years of Gov. Scott Walker criticizing his predecessor for not prioritizing work on the interchange.
Transportation Secretary Mark Gottlieb said the completion date for the project may need to be pushed back from 2018 to 2010 if more money isn’t put toward roads.
[...]
A two-year delay would also increase the project’s overall costs by nearly $50 million — about $40 million from inflation and $5 million to $8 million for additional maintenance.
I spent a fair amount of time driving in other areas of Wisconsin last week. Many perfectly good intersections have been replaced with roundabouts and little-used roads have been paved again. The Zoo Interchange is one of the busiest interchanges in the state. It’s also one for which we had to pay for temporary replacement bridges because it’s falling apart. Gottlieb’s priorities are wrong if the Zoo Interchange isn’t at the top of the list.
I like the fact Belling is taking the lead on calling out Gottlieb.
If we aren’t going to get common sense solutions from the DOT under Walker, we might as well go back to Doyle.
Yeah, now is the time for the State to blow open those main arteries around and through the city of Milwaukee. I’m always amazed how pretty much every large and even mid-size big city in the country has four or five lanes in one direction on major metro inbounds and outbounds while we stick with 2-3 lanes.
And please stop with the roundabouts. I think they make sense in certain specific areas but not when you stack them one on top of each other for what are very small, low traffic intersections. Unfortunately the 41/45 Cabela’s disease appears to have infected Highway 60.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 26, 2012 at 1040 hrs
While they are at it take a look at the 41/45 and good hope rd area. Pretty stupid to go from 3 lanes -2 lanes then back to 3 lanes…I wish I had a DOT engineering job. Putting together nonsensical ideas and geting paid well for it!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 26, 2012 at 1207 hrs
I have to agree with ‘Steve_Austin’: There appear to be all too many fools at WISDOT. More money for highways might be a good idea: but not until/unless someone cleans the fools out of WISDOT !
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 26, 2012 at 1219 hrs
Fools at WisDOT, fools at WDEC and criminals at the former Milw Co Exec office. I see a pattern here.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 26, 2012 at 1234 hrs
I like the fact Belling is taking the lead on calling out Gottlieb.
Remember, it was Belling who was banging the drum hard against gas tax indexing a few years ago, and taking pot shots at Republicans who weren’t moving fast enough to end it.
So, where does Belling propose the money come from now?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 26, 2012 at 1335 hrs
Belling isn’t calling for all sorts of new roads and spending. He’s been calling out Gottlieb and the DOT for:
a) Changing the striping of the 794 downtown interchange on-ramps for causing all sorts of traffic backups with rush hour traffic.
b) The roundabout disease infecting every intersection outside Milwaukee County.
He has brought these to Gottlieb’s attention for months as constituent problems but nothing really happens and the beat goes on at DOT. Belling feels the DOT is filled with Madison bureaucrats doing business as usual and thinks Walker needs to step in there.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 26, 2012 at 1418 hrs
Pelican,
The repeal of automatic gas tax indexing did not cut the gas tax!
The gas tax is still the same as it was, only it does not automatically inflation adjust, or go up every year.
As technology advances, roads last longer, stretching the dollar. No gas tax raise is needed…if government can mange resources reasonably…which I have doubts even with Gottleib running the show.
Doyle raided the fund anyway to spend on anything but roads. We should cut the tax, or if the state is going to sit on the fund (by not cutting the tax) increase street aid to local municipalities for road repair…a place where the dollar is stretched and better spent. This money has been continually cut to municipalities for years.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 26, 2012 at 1618 hrs
Wasn’t the Zoo Interchange one of the Obama “Shovel-ready” projects?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 26, 2012 at 1700 hrs
We have an intersection, 164 and Hubertus Rd., where school buses daily crossed paths with southbound traffic exceeding 70mph. Gottlieb saw fit to shoot down every option I offered but then offered no solution at all! Obviously the DOT solution is to wait until a school bus gets mashed. Maybe they can blame Bush.
What ever happened to the proposed law to put roundabouts on the ballot for voter approval?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 26, 2012 at 1706 hrs
The roundabouts would’ve happened with or without Gottlieb. They’re happening everywhere because they’re dramatically safer and more efficient than perpendicular intersections and they’re also a lot cheaper to maintain compared to stop lights. And to that end, I’ll listen to my friends who are traffic engineers as opposed to Mr. Austin, whose profession I’m not certain of.
As for the rest, I’m with Mr. Pants. You want more roads, find the money for more roads. But I’m guessing what DOT and Walker won’t be doing is torking off countless outstate legislators and residents by postponing dozens of their much smaller projects so he can reallocate the funding to a much larger project in a area where he gets 75% of the vote anyway.
You all wanted to be done with gas tax indexing. You made your bed. Lie in it.
Posted by Recess Supervisor on November 26, 2012 at 2240 hrs
May or may not have something to do with it, but something to ponder:
In the countries where round-a-bouts are popular, one drives on the opposite side of the road.
Just a thought.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 27, 2012 at 1212 hrs
Recess, I don’t have a problem with certain roundabouts. But as with everything the governent does, they always assume doing it in excess and everywhere is the best solution.
Come drive our stretch in Washington County between 41 and P. Must be no longer than a half mile and five roundabouts.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 27, 2012 at 1452 hrs
Say, isn’t Gottlieb a Walker appointment—aren’t all state Secretary’s Governor appointments?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 27, 2012 at 1523 hrs
In my past life, I was a transportation engineer and will agree with RS that roundabouts are often a very good alternative. We do. however, need smarter drivers.
But, I also think the configurations around 60 and 41/45 are overkill and frankly kind of stupid.Posted by Charlie Hillman on November 27, 2012 at 1524 hrs
I maintain that Wisconsin drivers don’t know how to drive in a roundabout. Do you use your signal?? I polled my friends and half said yes and the others said No it only confuses the other drivers. No word from DOT.
I have heard that an accident on a roundabout is considered 50/50 by insurance companies. They like that. Evidently the Right of Way issues were not good enough and judges were ruling in ways the insurance folks did not care for. So now everybody pays and that is uspposed to be better.
I have not tested the acccident theory to know what my insurance company would do.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 27, 2012 at 1527 hrs
I agree that people don’t know how to use roundabouts, but I sure do appreciate them in some places. The area around Cabela’s is ridiculous, and it will be a long time before people figure out how to use the three in a row at 60 and 45. But I’m grateful for the one at 60 and Division. Too many accidents at that intersection.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 27, 2012 at 1833 hrs
Where the roundabouts are great is as Wendy and Charlie said. Rural intersections with dangerous traffic loads and high speed stops. I’m totally fine with that one they put in on Highway 164 and 67(?). That was always a dangerous and crowded intersection with high speed deceleration.
But again, the bureaucrats never know where to stop. I noticed on the highway 60 roundabouts they have ones at the key interesections but then also load more into the intersections perhaps 200 yards from the main intersection.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 27, 2012 at 1859 hrs
WISDOT’s use of roundabouts is like the proverbial man with a hammer. They’ve found a solution that works well for some situations, but they’re applying it to nearly all situations. And they just don’t work well everywhere.
Let’s consider a few:
1. Too many roundabouts in a row. I think this is the most common complaint- stacking them up four or five in a row. That’s just aggravating, and it’s slow.2. Installing a roundabout where there’s one street with heavy traffic and a cross street with light traffic.
This situation is handled will with a traffic light with sensors that only interrupt traffic on the heavy-traffic street when necessary.
With a roundabout, traffic on the light-traffic street has trouble getting in (esp. rush hour) and eventually frustrated drivers just aim for any tiny gap and hope someone in the roundabout yields. This causes fender-benders (seldom injury accidents, because speeds are low) and accusations that drivers don’t know how to use roundabouts.
3. Roundabouts on high-speed highways. DOT is developing hwy 26 in Jefferson Co. to be a mostly limited-access route all the way from Janesville to Watertown. Traffic on the four-lane parts of it typically moves at 60-70mph- until it encounters three roundabouts just south of Watertown.
IMHO 15mph roundabouts are not suitable for high-speed highways!
But if they must use them, perhaps some attempt to reduce driver errors would help. For example, it’s natural to think that one should go straight through the roundabout (180 degrees) to continue on the highway- but there are instances where continuing on the same route requires going 270 degrees- which all but insures driver errors.
Finally, “Drivers don’t know how to use them!” is not a defense for roundabouts that perform poorly. The reality is that it isn’t (and never has been) all that difficult to obtain a driver’s license in the USA- and I doubt it ever will be. In any case, it’s simply a reality that all drivers make numerous small mistakes everyday- and good design should insure that these inevitable driver errors seldom cause accidents.
Which is to say, highway designs that are safe only for perfect drivers are bad designs. Good highway designs are tolerant and forgiving of driver errors. “Drivers don’t know how to use [insert highway feature] is not an excuse for bad design!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 28, 2012 at 0917 hrs
Go thru the Cabelas rotaries every day. The lines in the circles are neat little suggestions, no one uses them. Best I’ve done the series at is 45 in the rings, more on the straights. Got to get the corner entry/exit right to go really quick. Would be easier if they left off the curbs. Only have a near miss every week or so. More during the shopping season when Cabelas draws all the idiots that can’t navigate those wonderful things.
And the gas tax doesn’t need to be indexed. If more money is needed, they can always vote to increase it. Of course they need to figure out some way to get more money from the Prius drivers and the bike riders and others that use the roads but don’t pay enough (any?).
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 28, 2012 at 1013 hrs
Benefit-Cost Analysis and relative prioritization have always been a challenge for WISDOT.
Curious that no one in Madison is even attempting to make an argument for austerity and doing without?
Could it be that the political appetite for bringing home the bacon outweighs common sense?
Say it isn’t so:).
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 28, 2012 at 2038 hrs
Benefit-Cost Analysis and relative prioritization have always been a challenge for WISDOT.
Curious that no one in Madison is even attempting to make an argument for austerity and doing without?
Could it be that the political appetite for bringing home the bacon outweighs common sense?
Say it isn’t so:)
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 28, 2012 at 2041 hrs
Former Washington County Supervisor David Radermacher had an excellent guest column in the October 19, 2012 edition of the West Bend Daily News entitled, “It’s Past Time to Rein in DOT”—everyone should get a copy and read it.
In this column, Mr. Radermacher says, “In the past 30 years, the DOT has become an out-of-control, fiscally-irresponsible bureaucratic albatross weighing heavily on the backs of Wisconsin taxpayers.” He then calls upon our “common sense conservative” state legislators to tell Governor Scott Walker to bring “fiscal sanity and legal accountability” back to the DOT.
Mr. Radermacher cites several great examples of the DOT’s unnecessary, wasteful and (in some cases) illegal spending on road projects throughout Wisconsin. One example he cites is how the DOT now wants to wastefully spend $16.5 million to do a major reconstruction of Highway 164 (with traffic lane widening, hill flattening, real estate acquisition, building demolition, driveway rerouting and roundabout construction) when, according to past Washington County Sheriff’s statistics, all that is needed to improve traffic safety by nearly 80% is a simple speed limit reduction from 55 mph to 45 mph (which would only cost $6,000 to fully implement).
Furthermore, the federal courts recently ruled that this proposed expansion of Highway 164 is illegal because the DOT failed to examine the project’s economic and environmental impacts, failed to consider other more cost-effective and community-friendly alternatives (like reducing Highway 164’s speed limit to prevent future traffic accidents and preserve human life) and failed to hold proper public hearings to solicit citizen input in the affected communities.
Finally, Mr. Radermacher called upon Governor Walker to tell the DOT to substantially reduce roundabout construction throughout the state which, according to statistics obtained by Mark Belling, cost around $1.5 million apiece when traffic lights cost only $100,000 per intersection and stop signs even less. Additionally, roundabouts (with their NON-STOP TRAFFIC) can actually exacerbate safety problems in some cases especially when they are constructed near schools and for pedestrians trying to cross the road (especially children, senior citizens and disabled persons).
Even highly-respected, local business leaders like John Torinus have referred to our state DOT as “spending money like drunken sailors” and called upon them to start using our scarce tax dollars more responsibly (see Mr. Torinus’ September 6, 2006 West Bend Daily News column which was cited by Mr. Radermacher in his column).
Given these facts, I believe that it’s time for Governor Walker to immediately “terminate Mark Gottlieb’s employment as DOT Secretary” and appoint a “real common sense conservative” in his place who understands that 1) You don’t try to spend $16.5 million on an unnecessary and illegal reconstruction of Highway 164 to solve a $6,000 speed problem there, and 2) Every intersection DOES NOT need a roundabout—especially those near grade schools like the Friess Lake School at the Highway 164/167 intersection where placing a roundabout would CAUSE (rather than solve) safety problems for the children, parents and school buses that go there.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on December 06, 2012 at 1237 hrs
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