Do 23 sooner, but do it right
A PROJECT THAT COULD
make travel to Fond du Lac, Madison and beyond faster could be moving faster itself soon.
The state Department of Transportation is considering accelerating the project to expand State 23 to four lanes from Plymouth to Fond du Lac, taking advantage of federal stimulus funds to do so.
Local legislators met last week with DOT officials to urge that the project, scheduled now to begin in 2013, be moved up to 2011. They went to the meeting armed with resolutions of support from the Plymouth City Council and other local governments along the route.
Four lanes to Fond du Lac would complete a four-lane route all the way from Sheboygan to Madison, via State 23 and U.S. 151, that would make it easier to move people and goods to and from Sheboygan County, which will be a huge boost to the local economy and job picture. It would also make that travel safer as well.
The Plymouth to Fond du Lac portion of the project can be easily moved up. The state already has completed the necessary studies and has purchased the required right-of-way to install two additional lanes on the highway.
However, the sticking point may well be the portion of State 23 north of the city of Plymouth, between State 57 and State 67.
The DOT has already drawn up preliminary plans to convert that stretch, along with the stretch of State 23 from Plymouth to Sheboygan Falls, into a freeway. That would mean, in Plymouth, the eventual closing of intersections with Pleasantview Road, Highland Avenue and Fairview Drive, with concurrent overpasses and frontage roads.
The DOT had planned to do that in phases over a number of decades, with the first step a plan to install a J-turn intersection at the Highland Avenue intersection, close the Pleasantview and Fairview intersections and extend the Kiley Way frontage road from Highland Avenue to Fairview Drive. The DOT presently has federal funding in place to do that work in 2013.
If that work were moved up to 2011 along with the four lanes to Fond du Lac, it would make sense. But it wouldn’t make it sense if the plan to eventually close all three intersections is accelerated as well to some point in the near future.
To put in a new intersection at Highland Avenue, only to tear it out in a few years or so, would be an unnecessary waste of taxpayer money.
The DOT needs to move the State 23 project up, but it also needs to make sure it does it right and in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible, in conjunction with future plans for the highway corridor.
At issue: Something or other Bottom line: Do something about it
