Marquette Interchange/Early Completion

[Sir Lawrence]

All Marquette lanes to open by August

The era of detours through the Marquette Interchange will end a couple months earlier than projected, Gov. Jim Doyle announced this afternoon.

All of the lanes and ramps that carry roughly 300,000 vehicles per day and link the state's primary east-west and north-south interstate routes will be open by the end of August, said Doyle. The original time frame put that completion marker in November.

The project also will be completed under the budget of $810 million, Doyle said.

"The city of Milwaukee is the center for culture and commerce in Wisconsin and this key piece of infrastructure is an important addition to a thriving downtown," he said in a written statement.

Some of the work scheduled to be finished early will complete the connection between northbound I-43 and westbound I-94; southbound I-43 to eastbound I-794; and westbound I-794 to both northbound and southbound I-43.

New ramps will provide access to I-43 from W. Wisconsin Ave. at N. 11th St.

Milwaukee Ald. Bob Bauman, who represents the downtown district most affected by the construction work, praised the work on the state's largest road project.

"I think it really was well-executed, and I'm no big fan of those guys," Bauman said. "When they do projects well, they should be acknowledged for that."


http://www.jsonline.com/watch/?watch=1&date=7/1/2008&id=42539

[muwarrior87]

There's a reason they're creating a manual for this since it was ahead of schedule and under budget. When was the last time a government project did that?!?

[spiral97]

I believe it's happened down here in the Dallas area several times recently.. thinking that the George Bush tollway northern branch was completed early and under budget and also that the I635/Hwy75 interchange was done ahead on both counts too.  Now ask about the 121 tollway and I believe you'll get a drastically different answer but that might just be my impression given how long the project is taking.

[muarmy81]

My company does these types of projects and we've finished 2 recently 4-6 months ahead of schedule...substantial bonus associated with finishing many of these types of projects ahead of schedule...

[SaintPaulWarrior]

The I-35W bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis over the Mississippi was scheduled to be finished in Dec. '08.  It is now projected to be finished in Sept. '08.  Huge daily bonus for the Colorado contractor for this one.  Where there is a will there is a way.  $$$

[mu_hilltopper]

I can't say I understand construction projects .. I drove past the MU interchange 1000 times, and I'd say easily half the time, I never saw a single worker or single piece of equipment doing ANYTHING.

Either the 50% of the time they were working they worked fast .. or Keebler Elves did the work.

[muwarrior87]

lol, they did a lot of the work very early in the morning or at night when there is not a lot of traffic on the roads.  Living in Carpenter for two and a half years it was wonderful waking up from pile driving that would start around 6am.  But when they had to actually do work on the ramps and whatnot, much of it was done at night under lights.