DE PERE, WI (WTAQ) – The South Bridge Connector project in De Pere is getting a major boost from the federal government.
“I worked to include this $5 million for the South Bridge Regional Connector project into legislation that President Biden signed just last month,” said Senator Tammy Baldwin.
Baldwin stopped in De Pere Thursday to make the announcement. De Pere Mayor James Boyd was excited.
“The southern bridge will be a monumental project in our long history. Sixty-plus years in the making, the southern bridge is finally gaining solid momentum,” Boyd said.
The project includes a new bridge over the Fox River, and interchange on Interstate 41 near the town of Lawrence, and work on streets connecting them.
“There’s a limited number of crossings over the Fox [River]. The last time that situation was improved, it was not meeting the gross capacity even before it was finished,” Baldwin said. “This really looks ahead to the fact that this is a growing part of the state, a growing part of the community…Businesses, small, medium-sized, and industrial parks on both sides of the river need the connection in order to help the economy…This project is really crucial for Wisconsin in helping strengthen our supply chains, ensuring that drivers, bikers, and pedestrians can travel safely, and putting Wisconsin to work doing all of this.”
The funding will be matched by Brown County and the City of De Pere, who are each putting in $600,000 – pending board approvals.
“That total amount of money is going to enable us to do the remaining environmental work and the design work necessary for sections two and three, including the bridge,” said Brown County Planning Director Cole Runge. “This money is going to enable the county to start sections two and three, which includes the new Fox River bridge. so again this assistance is enabling us to do that, so it’s tremendously important.”
That kind of money could help expedite parts of the massive project.
“This money that was announced today in the match the county and the city will provide will enable us to begin that process and possibly even do it faster than we thought,” Runge said. “Initially, we thought we were gonna have to do sections two and three separately, but this funding from the federal government will allow us to design both segments at the same time…with the assistance of this federal funding, it’s possible since we can start designing two sections at the same time as opposed to one after another. We may be able to accelerate that a little bit, but at this point we’re not sure.”
However, Runge told WTAQ News it’s still hard to say what the exact schedule for the project will look like.
“We’re going to take a close look at that, and we’ll have a better idea in the next few months,” Runge said. “The DOT expects to start building the interchange itself, at this point I believe the schedule is 2025. The county will work with the city and town to build the connecting roads over by the interchange around that time as well.”
You can learn more about the South Bridge Connector project on the county’s website.
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