HORTONVILLE, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Highway 15 stretches through Greenville, Hortonville, and New London. It is known for its traffic jams and its deadly crashes.
Wisconsin’s Department of Transportation tells FOX 11 it is now restarting a 2011 plan to ease both those concerns.
“It’s a project we’ve been working on for a long time,” Bill Bertrand, the DOT Project Manager said.
“Work was suspended in 2017, then Gov. Evers announced this year at a press conference that we would resume.”
Bertrand says the project will expand 11 miles of Highway 15 from two to four lanes. It will also add two roundabouts– one on each side of Hortonville so drivers can go around the village.
“Certainly safety is an issue in improving it. There’s an increase in congestion along the highway combined with the high level and the high number of driveways and access points.”
The Department of Transportation is anticipating the project to cost $134.7 million. The project is fully funded through a major highway improvement program, according to Bertrand.
They’re expecting to start the project by 2021 and wrap up by 2024.
The DOT held a public information meeting on Tuesday. Most residents, like Alexis Rupple, say they’re happy the expansion is moving forward.
“We just moved to the area fairly recently, within the past three years, and even in those three years I feel like the traffic has been outrageous.”
She tells FOX 11 it’s hard to leave her home because the highway only has two lanes.
“It’s really hard to turn left because you have all that incoming traffic and then the people behind you too. So hopefully this will be a huge safety effort as well.”
The state hopes to finish the environmental review for the expansion in early 2020 and begin construction in 2021.
