Here are all the new Stadium Freeway redesign options

 

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- The public had its first chance Tuesday to look at a series of design proposals for a freeway spur city and county leaders want to convert into a boulevard.

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) held an open house at the Washington Park Senior Center. It's the second public meeting where people could offer in-person feedback on the future of a 1.5-mile stretch of Highway 175 that runs between I-94 and Lisbon Ave. The design options were broken into four sections, and within each of those sections was a series of different alternatives.

For those who attended the hearing, the site of one posterboard after another was at times overwhelming.

"To be honest, I'm kind of having trouble kind of really wrapping my mind around it," Wes Tank, who lives near Washington Park, said. "Even with the displays."

The big questions center around when the freeway would end and become an at-grade street that connects with the grid around Washington Park, as well as how a redesigned Highway 175 would intersect with main east-west streets, such as State St., Vliet St., Washington Blvd., Lloyd St. and what would happen at the current end of the spur at Lisbon Ave. 

There are different alternatives for State St. as it relates to Highway 175.

WisDOT officials said everything is still on the table.

"The alternatives range from reconstructing the existing highway as it is today to creating a new at-grade boulevard," WisDOT Project Manager Doug Cain said.

In some alternatives, streets like Vliet and Washington would keep running over Highway 175 as overpasses with rebuild interchanges. In others, the highway is filled in to street level and would intersect with traffic lights. One proposal even called for building a new tunnel to take Highway 175 underground between Vliet and Vine St. 

In some proposals, Vliet St. would still run over Highway 175 along an overpass. In another, the highway would go underground through a new tunnel.

Top priorities for those in attendances varied. Timothy Vargo said he wanted the entire freeway transformed into a boulevard. He said he opposed any design options that cut into Washington Park, which borders much of the freeway spur.

"Getting it back to street level access and boulevard access," Vargo said. "Being more neighborhood-friendly."

Others, such as Izetta Hall, said their priority was deterring reckless drivers. Hall said she was focused on addressing the north end of the spur at Lisbon Ave.

"Up there on 46th [St.], when you come on Lisbon, when you come off by Wendy's over there [at the end of the freeway], coming out of there," Hall said. "Reduce the speeding, that's good."

At the same time, Hall bemoaned other alternatives she believed add too many roundabouts along Highway 175. She worried it'd add too much time to the north-south commute.

"When I can go from here, from point A to point B, and I don't want to detour anywhere," she said.

Regarding the end of the spur, the design options mainly floated either rebuilding the intersection of Highway 175 and Lisbon or also rebuilding how traffic would move east on Lloyd before connecting with Sherman Blvd. 

Different alternatives exist for the end of the freeway spur at Lisbon Ave.

One consistent theme throughout the designs is the creation of new open land, which city and county officials have said they'd explore developing for housing, retail and commercial purposes. Another constant was the introduction of dedicated bike and pedestrian lanes along much of the current freeway.

There is no estimate of how much the various alternatives would cost. WisDOT officials have said this is simply a planning study, so no actual money figures are available.

Cain said the next step in the process will be narrowing down the alternatives to "two or three" options along the route. The plan is to then hold a third public meeting this winter for people to review the finalized options. 

The study is now set to be completed in early 2025; originally, the WisDOT plan called for the study to be done before the end of 2024. 

You can view each of the design options here, and you can fill out a survey sharing your views here.