Update: Check out a draft of the Hoan Bridge inspection report here.
The one-time Bridge to Nowhere will be the Bridge to Somewhere for decades to come. And that’s great news for South Milwaukee.
State officials on Saturday announced a potentially $350 million project that calls for redecking the bridge, stuctural modifications, repainting the bridge deck and other upgrades.
Check out the full story in the Journal Sentinel here. From it:
Plans are to focus on three segments of I-794.
The Hoan Bridge will be rehabilitated between Lincoln Ave. at the south and the Lake Interchange at the north. The project calls for the removal and replacement of the existing bridge deck, structural modifications, as well as repainting the bridge steel.
Concrete work and surface repairs on existing structures will be made at the Lake Interchange.
Old bridges will be removed and replaced with new structures on I-794 east/west between the Milwaukee River and N. Milwaukee St.
“This is a long-term repair,” said Mark Gottlieb, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation. “When we’re all done here we anticipate a useful life of the deck and the structure for 40 to 50 years for the Hoan Bridge.”
My reaction? As someone who takes the Hoan Bridge to and from work everyday, I’m glad to finally see a decision made on the future of this vital link between the South Shore and downtown.
As I’ve written about, I have always been in favor of studying all options for the future of the bridge — supportive of making sure that the state was making an informed decision about what’s best for this road before we, as taxpayers, spend hundreds of millions of dollars on fixing it.
I had been a bit concerned that the rhetoric in this debate was getting ahead of the facts.
Well, I am confident that due diligence has been done, and the end result will absolutely deliver on the only imperative in my mind since this discussion started: that a quick and seamless connection from the South Shore be maintained, even enhanced.
As South Shore Supervisor Pat Jursik put it in the story linked above: “The south side is the place to be.”
I can’t agree more!
South Milwaukee Blog 
Great news! One question – Do you know what they are currently doing to the Hoan vs. what they are proposing and if the current renovations will / should be stopped to save money?
SM Guy: The work now is being labeled a “patching project,” at a cost of around $7 million. I am OK with spending this money. Honestly, potholes were making stretches of the bridge nearly undrivable in recent months … and the bigger project is not expected to start until later in 2013. I can’t imagine what the bridge would drive like in six months to a year without the repairs that are going on right now.
Funny, you were able to write this piece without even using that devil Scott Walkers name!!
Purely coincidental 🙂