June 27, 2024

By Lane Kimble

MILWAUKEE — Construction work that should ease congestion and reduce crashes along a busy stretch of I-94 in Milwaukee is on track to begin in a little more than a year.

The I-94 East-West Corridor project will also lengthen some freeway entrance ramps and retool the Stadium Interchange into the state’s first diverging diamond, WisDOT said this week.

Tuesday night, the Department held the first of two open houses to update people on the project’s status.

“We’re moving forward,” WisDOT Southeast Freeway Design Chief Jeff Bohen told FOX 6 News.  “We’re starting to nail down our construction schedule and how this whole project is gonna kinda piece together.”

The 3 ½-mile stretch from 70th Street to 16th Street, running past American Family Field, will expand from six to eight lanes. Work on the west leg of the project is scheduled to begin in Fall 2025. The work will vastly improve pavement and bridge conditions and reduce delays.

“A lot of the crashes that we’re seeing out there are rear-end crashes which are due to congestion, so the future forecast is why we’re going with four lanes in each direction to alleviate congestion and improve safety,” Bohen said to CBS-58.

Currently, WisDOT estimates the project will cost about $1.5 billion dollars, but that figure could increase with inflation.  About $68 billion in goods flow through the corridor every year.