Zoo Interchange Project

Project History

After World War II, the United States saw increases in population, economy, jobs, growth… automobile usage. Continuing the trend begun well before the war, automobile ownership and use continued to soar. Suburbs were growing, partly from city dwellers moving out to experience “country living” or from G.I’s returning from the war needing places to live and raise their families. Jobs and major shopping areas were still located downtown and with more people having to drive to these jobs and stores, the major streets in all cities were becoming overloaded.  This was the case in Milwaukee, where city traffic grew 100 percent between 1945 and 1952.

In 1951, the City of Milwaukee hired traffic consultants Amman & Whitney to study the traffic needs of the city. A year later, they proposed a 20.4-mile long expressway system  It was dubbed the “South 44th Street Expressway” at the time, but was later incorporated into the Stadium Freeway. In 1953, the Milwaukee County Expressway Commission was established in order to handle the growing number of freeways that the City of Milwaukee wanted.

One of the first orders of business of the new Milwaukee County Expressway Commission was to create an overall freeway plan for the area.  On February 24, 1955 the plan was released expanding on the City’s original ideas  with projected completion by 1972.

Just over a year after the 1955 report, the Interstate Highway Act was signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, creating the now ubiquitous Interstate Highway System. This new system of highways meshed perfectly with the new Milwaukee County expressway system and two of the freeways were incorporated into the Interstate system—Airport and East-West—with parts of two others included—North-South and Zoo.

The Zoo Freeway is a major north-south facility in western Milwaukee County, running 13.5 miles from the Hale Interchange in Greenfield northerly to the North Interchange in northwest Milwaukee. At the Hale Interchange, the I-41/894 Zoo Freeway meets the I-43/Rock Freeway and the I-41/894/43/Airport Freeway, while at the North Interchange, the I-41/Zoo Freeway intersects the STH-145/Fond du Lac Freeway. The Zoo itself carries the US-45 route designation in its entirety, while the southernmost four miles are also part of the I-894 bypass route of Milwaukee.

The earliest Milwaukee County Expressway Commission plans included a freeway in at least part of the modern day Zoo corridor. The earliest proposals called for the “West Freeway” to serve more as a feeder route into the East-West Freeway, beginning at STH-15/National Ave and continuing northerly to the STH-100/Mayfair Rd interchange. The Zoo was envisioned as a relief route for STH-100 traffic. After the Milwaukee County Zoo was relocated from Washington Park in the 1950s—due, in part, to the planned freeway to traverse the portion of Washington Park where the original zoo was located—the West Freeway was rechristened to the Zoo Freeway.

Construction on the I-41 freeway began in the early 1960s at both the north end and the middle of the proposed freeway. In the middle of the corridor, the originally-planned 4.6-mile stretch was completed in 1963 between Beloit Rd and North Ave, with the southernmost three miles co-signed as I-894. On the north end, the portion of I-41/STH-100 along N 115th St in northwest Milwaukee from just south of Appleton Ave northerly to the new interchange with the STH-145/Fond du Lac Freeway was converted to expressway/freeway standards by 1965 with interchanges at Appleton Ave, CTH-PP/Good Hope Rd and the Fond du Lac Freeway. South of Appleton Ave, the highway narrowed back down to the original N 115th St (now Lovers Lane) alignment.

In 1966, the Zoo Freeway from Beloit Rd southerly to the Hale Interchange was opened to traffic as part of the completion of the I-894 bypass that year. A year later, the entire freeway was finished with the opening of the segment from North Ave northerly to the STH-145/Fond du Lac Freeway in northwest Milwaukee. The Zoo Freeway was now completed as we know it today.

In 2009, three bridges in the Zoo Interchange reached such dire condition that the Wisconsin Department of Transportation was forced to make emergency repairs, replacing the bridges with sections of pre-constructed spans, upwards of 200 feet long, in order to avoid months-long road closings required for traditional demolition and reconstruction work. Because of problems found in the 40-year-old spans in the spring and summer of 2009, the DOT imposed load limits for trucks passing over the structures. Further inspections revealed severe cracks in the concrete girders, corrosion weakening the steel reinforcing bars and concrete falling from the bridges. Calling the condition of the structures an emergency, the DOT sought a quick turnaround of approximately 6 months to complete the repairs. This was done with the knowledge that the Zoo Interchange Project would be fully reconstructing the interchange within the following 5-10 years.

Information from www.wisconsinhighways.org