• 
• CLASS
• JOBS
• AUTO
• HOMES

Highway 50 expansion hearing set

Photo

Photo by Tony DiNicola

Walworth County - Highway 50 expansion

DELAVAN TOWNSHIP — You can call the plan a faster way to get from Lake Lawn Resort to Geneva Lake.

Or you could call it a pleasant bike ride through the Walworth County countryside.

Or the accident-reduction plan.

Or you could go with its official name: The Walworth County Jurisdictional Highway System Plan.

This week, the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission invited the public to its next meeting to hear discussion on a proposal to convert Highway 50 from two lanes to four lanes between County F and Highway 67.

The stretch of road to be widened begins near the Lake Lawn Resort and runs over the Delavan Lake inlet and south toward Williams Bay.

Kenneth Yunker, executive director of the planning commission, said he didn’t expect the roadwork would be done for a number of years, but the widening would be part of the long-term planning process.

Highway 50 underwent two resurfacing projects over the last 31 years, according to the Department of Transportation. General maintenance on the road is expected in the spring or summer of 2013.

At a meeting in February, the Delavan Town Board passed a resolution in support of the plan. The resolution detailed the history of the idea, including an October 2010 public hearing that recommended preserving the right-of-way along Highway 50 so the road could be widened in the future.

A meeting in April 2011 outlined further plans that included four roundabouts, a narrower median and right-of-ways that would “preserve private property and avoid most business property acquisitions through the inlet …”

The roundabouts are expected to reduce “the number and severity of crashes” along Highway 50, the resolution said.

Reducing the impact on Community Park and businesses along Highway 50 were crucial to the plan’s approval, Yunker said.

The plan also calls for a multi-use trail along the south side of Highway 50.