GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – A Southern Bridge Project is closer to reality after the DOT agreed to fund and add the project to the I-41 expansion project.
Brown County Executive Troy Streckenbach has received a signed letter from Wisconsin Department of Transportation Secretary-Designee Craig Thompson committing the DOT’s assistance to enumerate and include funding for construction of an interchange along Interstate 41 in southern Brown County as part of the regional highway expansion.
“In this long journey, to get the state to finally identify and to agree to design and construct the interchange for the Southern Bridge is a game-changer.”
Local leaders have been pressuring the state for years to improve traffic and safety in De Pere.
The idea to construct an interchange along I-41 in Southern Brown County is finally starting to happen.
Will Dorsey, Department of Transportation Northeast Region Director, says it has always been a consideration.
“The issue has been funding all along and where it comes from. This really is best characterized as the first domino to topple.”
Streckenbach says he is glad to see the State see eye-to-eye with the county.
“They needed to see that this was a state project and that it was a priority of the sate,” said Streckenbach. “We never had that until this point.”
Dorsey says the idea made more sense after Governor Evers provided funding to expand I-41 between De Pere and Appleton.
“If we can sink that up with the I-41 project, it is going to be a huge benefit from a traffic standpoint, a safety standpoint and an economic standpoint.”
The I-41 project is on the fast track to begin in 2025 and will take four years. It is not known when the Southern Bridge project would take place in the time span.
On Wednesday, October 16, the Brown County Board of Supervisors approved funding half of the cost related to completion of the Tier 1 Environmental Impact Statement in order to earn the receipt of the Record of Decision (ROD) that identifies the preferred Southern Bridge Arterial corridor and I-41 interchange location. The City of De Pere, and the Towns of Lawrence and Ledgeview will also approve sharing the remaining cost of this work. The Wisconsin DOT commitment is contingent upon Brown County completing a ROD by October 2020.
“We are finally getting to a point where we might actually see a bridge built,” said Streckenbach.
The Southern Bridge Corridor Project will involve constructing a new Fox River bridge in the City of De Pere and a divided four-lane arterial street corridor between the intersection of County Highways GV and X in the Town of Ledgeview and the intersection of County Highways EB and F in the Town of Lawrence. A big portion of this project involved a new full-access interchange at Interstate 41.
