I'd Like to Tear Down the Hoan Bridge

Fortunately, and contrary to my bio above, I don’t drive home from work on the Hoan Bridge every evening at five. I used to, and other people do, and they wait inexplicably for the stop lights on Oklahoma Avenue, wondering why the on/off ramp there needs stoplights. They wait in traffic backed up for a mile on the freeway, waiting for the light to change and change again and change and change again. And if they’re like me, they don’t just get off at the port instead, because the whole thing is just so ridiculous.

But that’s not the reason I think the Hoan Bridge should be torn down.

Last year, the state DOT commissioned a study to explore alternatives to resurfacing and repairing the bridge, which the DOT says needs to be done by 2013 and would cost $220 million. The bridge itself will need to be replaced in thirty years. The alternatives to repairing the Hoan include building a ground level extension of the 794 highway with a smaller lift bridge that would allow ships to pass through to the port. The estimated cost of a new road and bridge is the same as repairing the Hoan, and building at grade would allow up to $5.7 billion in new commercial, residential, and public development of the port area, much of which is now unused.

(above: a proposal for redevelopment of the Hoan Bridge area and a Google Maps image of one section)

But the very act of studying an alternative to the Hoan Bridge has left people in the area, well, confusing me.

County Supervisor Patricia Jursik is leading the Coalition to Save the Hoan and she’s joined by Bay View’s County Supervisor Marina Dimitrijevic, Alderman Tony Zielinski, and Scott Walker. They’re having town hall meetings with citizens and collecting signatures on a petition that rejects “demolishing the Hoan and replacing it with ground-level lift bridges and a boulevard.”

I don’t understand this at all. A coalition to save Bay View’s efficient connection to downtown and the Marquette Interchange I would understand. I’d even sign the petition. But the coalition to save the Hoan specifically seems at best short sighted and arbitrary, and at worst like political grandstanding.

The Coalition’s materials don’t say they want to save the bridge for aesthetic or cultural reasons. If they did, I’d say I think the bridge is kind of ugly. It’s a landmark sure, but so was County Stadium. The lakefront would be better served with a smaller scale modern bridge that echoes the Calatrava and Pier Wisconsin while allowing utilization of a stretch of the lakefront for development beyond a shit factory.

Members of the Coalition have economic concerns about removing the connection between 794 and the Marquette Interchange, Bay View and downtown. Fine. But no one is suggesting that be done. Why not replace the Hoan Bridge with a less expensive structure that creates more development opportunities?

The effects that a smaller bridge would have on traffic and on the port should be studied, but the opposition is opposed to any studies. A new bridge would be at ground level, meaning traffic would need to stop for it to open and allow ships to pass through to the port. The DOT’s commissioned study shows the bridge would need to open on average of once per day for about six minutes, maybe longer. So if you were rushing to get to work on time this would be a problem if that six minutes in a day happened to coincide with your commute.

But really, opening the bridge would be no worse than waiting for that goddamned traffic light on Oklahoma Ave.

At least one member of local government is responding rationally to all of this. Downtown Alderman Bob Bauman said, "Why would you not want to look at the matter and find out the facts? …It's almost irresponsible to say we don't even want the information."