U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx today joined Wisconsin Transportation Secretary Mark Gottlieb and other state and local leaders near the northern end of the proposed I-39/90 Expansion project to see first-hand the traffic congestion it would alleviate, and to call for greater investment in infrastructure nationwide.
Foxx described the project as a potential beneficiary of the GROW AMERICA Act, a $302 billion, four-year multimodal investment plan by President Obama to address the nation’s aging transportation network without contributing to the deficit. If passed, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) would receive an estimated $3.3 billion between 2015 and 2018, an increase of nearly 15 percent over the state's current federal funding.
The I-39/90 project is expected to cost nearly $1 billion and will rely on significant federal transportation funding. As one of the largest highway projects ever undertaken in south-central Wisconsin, it will stretch nearly 45 miles from U.S. 12 and 18 Beltline Interchange to the Illinois state line.
When construction starts next year, WisDOT workers will reconfigure all 11 of the route's interchanges to make them safer and less congested. They will also widen the route from four lanes to six between U.S. 12/18 near Madison to the Illinois state line, and to eight lanes between Avalon Road north to the WIS 26 interchange to accommodate projected traffic increases through the Janesville area.
