State gets $160 million for I-94 upgrades

Federal funds are still short of $246M request

Wisconsin will receive $160 million in federal funds for a massive upgrade of I-94 south of Milwaukee that state officials see as a critical element in the planned development of Foxconn Technology Group in Racine County.

The funding is substantially short of the state’s request of $246.2 million to finish a long-awaited upgrade of the freeway from southern Milwaukee County to Kenosha County.

Work on the freeway took on added urgency when Foxconn announced plans for a $10 billion factory near I-94 in Mount Pleasant that could employ up to 13,000 workers.

Republican Gov. Scott Walker emphasized in a statement on Wednesday that while Wisconsin got less than it sought from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the state is getting ad-

The project calls for converting 18.5 miles of I-94 from three to four lanes from south of College Avenue in Milwaukee County to state Highway 142 in Kenosha County by December 2021. State road planners will be able to open all eight lanes by Memorial Day of 2020.

ditional federal funds that will make up for some of it.

The state Department of Transportation has started preliminary work on the project, which calls for converting 18.5 miles of I-94 from three to four lanes from south of College Avenue in Milwaukee County to state Highway 142 in Kenosha County by December 2021.

Walker said that by using a combination of state and federal money, the state is keeping the project moving forward. State road planners will be able to open all eight lanes by Memorial Day of 2020, he said.

“We’ll still be able to keep the I-94 project where we had wanted in terms of it being all lanes will be open in both directions by 2020,” he told reporters in Madison. “The project itself will be completely completed by 2021.”

News of the funding was first announced by Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat.

In a statement, Baldwin said the funds will address deteriorated roads and bridges and redesign interchanges to improve traffic flow.

Wisconsin’s federal request of nearly $250 million represented one-sixth of the $1.5 billion available in a grant program known as the Infrastructure for Rebuilding America, or INFRA.

Walker and state transportation officials said they will be able to make up for some of the shortfall with $67.4 million in other federal dollars that they said Wisconsin will be receiving.

Of that, $37.4 million is going to I-94 and $30 million is planned for 49 local bridge projects across the state, state officials said.

In addition, a DOT spokeswoman said that the state will tap other state transportation dollars that will free up other federal dollars for I-94.

Walker said in his statement that the funding means the I-94 project would be completed “11 years ahead of schedule.”

However, the long-delayed project was slated to be finished by 2016.

Craig Thompson, executive director of the Wisconsin Transportation Development Association, said he was pleased the state was getting more money for I-94 but noted the project is behind schedule and details on funding remain unclear.

“To claim that this is 11 years ahead of schedule is simply not true,” he said.

Thompson also said his organization wants to find out more about how the state will fund the freeway work.