Fail to learn from the past and you’re doomed to relive it, or so historians tell us. Regarding the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and the Milwaukee freeway system, much needed lessons have historically fallen on deaf ears and may continue to do so given the proposed round of freeway improvements.
Currently at issue are WisDOT plans to attempt once again to relieve congestion on the I-94 stretch between the Marquette and Zoo interchanges by expanding the 3.5-mile stretch running from 17th to 70th streets from six to eight lanes. The freeway, built in the 1960s, now far exceeds its original capacity of 115,000 vehicles per day with a crash rate two to three times the state average, WisDot says. New businesses that have grown around previous freeway improvements will only complicate the aging roadway’s future.
A memo from Gov. Tony Evers sent earlier this year paints a rosy picture of what sounds like a seamless transition to the new design. In his memo, Evers stresses that all development will occur within the existing right-of-way or on public land, without destroying freeway-adjacent homes or businesses in the process. Funds from the Federal Highway Administration will underwrite the estimated $1.1 billion in improvements.
Sound good, or at least better than past Milwaukee freeway projects that decimated entire neighborhoods? Maybe, but that’s not the end of the story. A subsequent Evers memo offering “corrections” to his original communique contained some significant changes, according to Mike Pyritz, spokesperson for WisDOTS’ southeast region.
“The project will be a blend of federal and state funds, with federal dollars covering a large portion of the project cost,” Pyritz says. “That percentage depends on the way funds are allocated in future state budgets.”
The freeway’s current right-of-way, it turns out, will not be sufficient after all. Whether the repair work maintains the current six lanes or expands to eight lanes, cannibalizing nearby properties will be necessary. “At this time there are 14 homes and businesses that could be impacted,” Pyritz says. “Depending on the final design, it’s possible that number will be lowered.”
WisDOT plans to hold public hearings on the project later this year or early next year. For freeway watchers and community members, especially those in Milwaukee’s central city, this is an all too familiar refrain that focuses more on the transportation needs of suburban commuters than it does the health and wellbeing of freeway neighbors. Few, if any, are happy about it.
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Will Past be Prologue?
Milwaukee’s freeway history, like that of many U.S. cities, started in the wake of the post-World War II economic boom with the need to move growing numbers of cars more quickly through increasingly gridlocked surface streets. And like cities such as St. Paul, Detroit and New Orleans, Milwaukee’s concrete ribbons of high-speed pavement rode roughshod over the city’s neighborhoods of color, destroying and displacing entire communities so that the growing number of suburban commuters could reach their downtown offices more efficiently.
In the 1960s the combined construction of I-43 and the Park East freeways devastated Bronzeville, the historic center of Milwaukee’s Black community. A thriving residential and commercial district with retail stores, professional offices and theaters that hosted the likes of Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington, Bronzeville was destroyed in favor of freeway access stretching to the city’s affluent North Shore suburbs.
The freeway construction appetite continued. The Zoo Interchange, part of the 1960s building frenzy, undertook a $1.7 billion upgrade in 2012 to improve its admittedly dangerous configuration. The effort sparked significant controversy when planners failed to consider other forms of transportation as part of the package. The Milwaukee Inner-city Congregations Allied for Hope and the Black Health Coalition of Wisconsin filed a lawsuit in federal court against WisDOT, claiming the project would benefit white suburbanites with cars and discriminate against an inner-city community reliant on public transportation. The suit was settled in 2014, with WisDOT agreeing to pay $13.5 million toward public transit improvements.
The Inner-city Congregations emerged once again as a plaintiff in a 2017 suit filed in federal court to halt the initial effort to expand the I-94 stretch currently under consideration. Joining the suit was the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin filing behalf of fellow plaintiffs NAACP Milwaukee and the Sierra Club John Muir Chapter. The lawsuit followed in the footsteps of its 2014 predecessor, contending that the project’s impact analysis failed to consider racial, social and environmental concerns caused by the expansion. In October 2017, Judge J.P. Stadtmueller dismissed the case without prejudice, a legal term that allows for out-of-court settlements.
Given the history, it’s no wonder that Milwaukee’s Black community expects only the worst outcome from the current plan which, despite its best intentions, will bring with it continued social and environmental challenges for urban residents.
“This is yet again a mayoral move to accommodate spending and travel into downtown for folks outside the city, rather than investing in things the city needs and has needed for decades,” says community activist Vaun Mayes, head of Program the Parks MKE and Community Task Force MKE. “We still somehow find money to pay what will likely be predominantly white and outsider companies to come in and do that work, while people in the inner city sit jobless watching others work in our city. I sincerely hope the next mayor will truly get input from stakeholders, such as myself, before doing whatever they think is best for the city.”
Multiple calls and emails seeking comment from other Black community leaders, including Common Council President Cavalier Johnson, County Supervisor and school board member Sequanna Taylor, and NAACP Milwaukee President Clarence Nicholas received no response.
‘Environmental Injustice’
The disproportionate distribution of value characterized by WisDOT’s I-94 redevelopment plan, which favors suburban commuters’ transportation needs over those of central city residents, is only one aspect that plan critics find unacceptable. Research shows that, in most cases, more traffic lanes lead to more traffic, increasing carbon emissions that further damage the health and wellbeing not only of area residents, but also the environment itself. Given climate change’s increasing rapidity, the last thing anyone needs is more exhaust fumes in the air, according to a 43-page report by a consortium of environmental groups issued in response to WisDOT’s plan.
“Fix at Six: A Sustainable Alternative to Expanding I-94 in Milwaukee” was authored by transportation consultant Mark Stout at the request of environmental and social rights groups 1000 Friends of Wisconsin; the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin; Midwest Environmental Advocates; the Sierra Club-Wisconsin Chapter; Wisconsin Environment; and WISPIRG, the state chapter of the federation of Public Interest Research Groups. Released in September, the plan advocates for repairing the current six freeway lanes, but then spending the balance of budgeted funds on transportation alternatives that preserve the environment while better serving community needs, including health needs.
“Global warming is more acutely felt in urban areas with lots of concrete,” says Tony Wilkin Gibart, executive director of Midwest Environmental Advocates. “[WisDOT’s] plan is compounding harm done to communities of color and folks living in urban areas because of the way heat is trapped in urban geography.
“We also know increased traffic decreases air quality and is associated with severe health consequences in communities in and around freeways,” he adds. “The highway’s expansion will not benefit those communities, but encourage more traffic to move into and through the city, which is an environmental injustice to residents. The current plan simply repeats the injustices of the past.”
The Fix at Six plan supports repairing existing roads and bridges as needed, but also includes adding a bus/rapid transit lines along National and Greenfield avenues, creating walkable and bikeable neighborhoods along the east-west I-94 corridor, reducing the existing Stadium freeway to a boulevard, and maximizing other sustainable options, including creation of commuter rail lines to Milwaukee’s western suburbs and, eventually, to Madison.
“There has been strong opposition to the WisDOT plan since its inception in 2012,” says Gregg May, transportation policy director for 1000 Friends. “Particularly egregious is the $1.1 billion to add an additional lane in each direction. It’s a project that doesn’t offer any benefit to people who don’t or won’t drive. We could build a commuter rail system between Madison and Milwaukee for less money than that.”
Environmental as well as social issues are among the key problems of the WisDOT plan, agrees Saadie Ali, interim director of ACLU Wisconsin. According to the National Environmental Protection Act, WisDOT is obligated to fully assess all social impacts of their development plans, he adds.
“The interstate system is an infrastructural cornerstone in Milwaukee’s racial segregation,” Ali says. “A highway of this magnitude creates physical barriers that devastate minority neighborhoods. At the same time, it reifies the economic, social, and spatial mobility of wealthy white suburbanites.”
The Fix at Six plan takes a more holistic approach to transportation needs, Ali explains, calling for options available to all community members while evaluating the intersection between transportation and housing needs. Such evaluation can lead to more effective and equitable housing and zoning practices.
“I’ve seen estimates that roughly $250 million could be saved by bringing the size of the project down from eight to six lanes,” Ali adds. “Reinvesting that quarter of a billion dollars back into bus, biking, and housing infrastructure would be a huge win on its own.”
Environmental Racism?
More equitable distribution of assets also would go a long way to reduce “environmental racism,” a part of environmental injustice that has been exacerbated largely by freeway site selection and the general destruction of communities of color across the U.S., Gibart explains.
“The state has a choice about which path to follow and whether it will continue down the path of past environmental inputs that are burdensome to communities of color,” Gibart says. “For a city like Milwaukee that’s historically been highly segregated, the plan would make it possible for community members to move more easily about the city. In the process, the community’s cohesion would improve, leading to a more diverse, communicative and equitable community.”
“These kinds of projects are meant to last for generations and we’re in the position now to build a more just economic and equitable future for Milwaukee and for Wisconsin,” he adds.
Reggie Jackson, former lead griot for America’s Black Holocaust Museum and co-owner and lead trainer for the newly minted consulting firm Nurturing Partners, agrees.
“We all need to become better listeners,” Jackson says. “Elected officials need to stop telling people what they are going to do and rather ask them what they should do. A collaborative approach will get the project done more quickly and with better results. I am hoping things will be different this time.”
