Milwaukee residents fear more flooding due to planned highway expansion

Editor’s note: This story is part of a collaboration that includes the Institute for Nonprofit News, Borderless, Ensia, Planet Detroit, Sahan Journal, and Wisconsin Watch, as well as the Guardian and Inside Climate News. The project was supported by the Joyce Foundation. You can read the launch story from Ensia, “Inundation and Injustice: Flooding presents a formidable threat to the Great Lakes region,” here. This story was originally published by Wisconsin Watch, a nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative news outlet reporting on issues of importance to Wisconsin.  Click here for highlights from the story. The Wisconsin Department of Transportation plans to spend about $1.2 billion to add two lanes to a 3.5-mile segment of the I-94 East-West Freeway corridor in Milwaukee, aiming to repair the road and ease congestion. Residents worry the addition of about 29 acres (12 hectares) of asphalt will increase flows of stormwater into surrounding flood-vulnerable neighborhoods. The Wisconsin Department of Transportation acknowledges the extra pavement will increase stormwater runoff. The department doesn’t plan to analyze precise effects on runoff until the final design phases of a project expected to break ground in 2025. More than 20% of households near the corridor lack a car, and expansion opponents point to volumes of research showing that widening highways can actually increase traffic volume. Janet Haas two decades ago saw potential in a field of thistle, grass and bushes that Milwaukee County had neglected: Valley Park, nestled between the Menomonee River to the west and homes in one of Milwaukee’s most racially diverse neighborhoods to the east. “The county doesn’t have any money, and they haven’t had any money for years,” says Haas, who has lived most of her life in the Near West Side neighborhood, called The Valley or Piggsville. “One day I just decided that the thistles were as tall as I was, and I wasn’t going to take it anymore.” That meant persuading her mom and a friend to join her in pulling weeds and planting bushes and flowers in the park. The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District built the park as part of a multi-million dollar project to protect… Read More
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