Menomonee River Parkway Repairs on the Horizon

An end to the washboard condition of most of the Menomonee River Parkway is in sight.

But the celebration of a long wished-for smooth cruise all the way from the Village to near Wauwatosa's northern border is still about three years out.

According to city and Milwaukee County officials, repair of the parkway is included in the county's capital budget, and planning and design are already under way.

The current plan, though, calls for the work of rebuilding the ragged roadway paralleling the Menomonee River to be done in two stages.

Ald. Jeff Roznowski, whose 6th District includes a long stretch of patched and battered county parkway, said planners had scheduled repair of the road from Burleigh Street north for 2014, and from Burleigh south to the Village for 2015.

City officials keep watch on project

For years, motorists and bike riders have complained about the rough condition of Menomonee River Parkway, often taking their irritation to Wauwatosa City Hall. But the parkways are Milwaukee County roads, on cash-strapped Milwaukee County's property, and the city has had little say in getting the job done.

Until now. Roznowski pointed out that Mayor Kathy Ehley sits on the county's Capital Budget Committee, and 4th District Ald. Jill Organ, long a county engineer, recently moved to the lead planning position in the Parks Department.

That doesn't mean they can play favorites. But it puts them in a position to keep a close eye on established capital plans and to help keep them on track, Roznowski said.

County budget shortfalls have been known before to cause delays or indefinite postponements in scheduled capital projects. But Roznowski said he believed the chances were good for this project to proceed on pace.

Money for planning and design of the 2014-'15 rebuild is being spent right now, Roznowski said, and governments are loath to waste planning funds for projects that don't get done or go out of date.

From county perspective, some delay unavoidable

County Supervisor Jim "Luigi" Schmitt said he had been pushing for repairs to the parkway for years and had made good headway before the county hit a major bump in its fiscal road.

"It's been a priority for me, but it's a priority for every supervisor," said Schmitt, himself a resident of Tosa's 6th District. "The parks and parkways are the most visible thing that our constituents see, and they let us know.

"Every year in the capital budget process, we look at everything across the county – and we have a huge deferred maintenance problem that keeps a lot of things from being done. Everything is ranked by need, from A – and we don't have too many of those – to D and F.

"These two stretches of Menomonee Parkway and also Underwood Creek Parkway had gotten to D-level, and were in the top 10, and were in fact on the schedule for last year.

"But then we had a crisis. We had to put $4.5 million toward the Estabrook Park dam, and we had no choice in that. So that kicked us back.

"Now, though, we're higher in the pecking order, and planning money is being spent now, in 2013, but, no, you won't see the work begin until 2014."

Patching things together in the meantime

The repair plan should be most welcome news to residents in the neighborhood of Hartung Park, north of Burleigh, who will be first to benefit. Some of the worst stretches of rugged, disintegrating roadway are just above and below Hartung.

Others, though, might argue that the worst stretch of all is just above the Village, at the lower end of Hoyt Park. Bad, it is, but the county has been patching the nastiest stretches and recently filled in two long troughs in the pavement with asphalt.

Those repairs are temporary at best, but at least that piece of road is passable for bicycles. Riders have been complaining that the deteriorated surface had gone well beyond a mere annoyance and become a true tire-grabbing, traffic-dodging safety hazard.

Farther to the north, where repairs will come first, a big part of the problem is less noticeable, perhaps, than the actual pavement upheaval but contributes to it greatly.

The already low curbs in the portion of parkway north of Burleigh have for long reaches crumbled, leaving a rough edge that collects debris and doesn't drain water. The standing water, in freezing and thawing conditions, speeds up the ruin of the roadway, and the damage then progresses toward the middle through ever-expanding cracks.