Officials seek to help 'dead-ended' business
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MILTON — A state lawmaker vows he'll go straight to the governor's office to help a Milton businessman whose access to traveling customers would be cut off by the Highway 26 bypass.
Milton Mobile Travel Center owner Amin Shaikh issued an appeal during a meeting with state Rep. Evan Wynn, R-Whitewater, and officials from the city of Milton and the Wisconsin Department of Transportation at his gas station Thursday.
"I cannot go on in this big elephant without traffic," Shaikh said.
Shaikh owns a gas station convenience store and a McDonald's restaurant on the northwest corner of Arthur Drive and Highway 26 on Milton's south side.
The DOT's plans for the Highway 26 expansion through Milton show the bypass veering southeast of Shaikh's gas station and cutting a mile east around Milton.
The current Highway 26 will end just north of Shaikh's business. Arthur Drive will link an overpass at Henke Road with Townline Road, but neither Henke Road nor Townline Road would have direct entry or exit at Highway 26.
The bottom line: The new route of Highway 26 will cause 16,000 vehicles a day to skirt around Shaikh's gas station with no direct access to the business.
"I'm a gas station and a convenience store, and now there is no convenience. There will be no traffic. How will I survive? My demise is confirmed," Shaikh told The Gazette.
Shaikh urged the DOT Thursday to consider adding another interchange or frontage access, possibly at the reconfigured Townline Road just to the south, so travelers on Highway 26 could more easily reach his gas station.
The message got through to Wynn.
Wynn told DOT officials at the meeting Thursday that he planned to schedule talks next week with Gov. Scott Walker, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and Transportation Secretary Mark Gottlieb to try to find a solution for Shaikh.
"I truly believe if at the public meetings when they were deciding this (bypass), if somebody said, 'By the way, we're going to take down a million dollars of Milton's tax base if we don't put an interchange here,' we'd probably have a different map right now," Wynn said.
The Gazette reported in May that DOT plans for the bypass would cut off the gas station from the main flow of traffic on Highway 26.
Shaikh said he'd gone to DOT informational meetings on the bypass this year, but he didn't realize the extent to which his business would be cut off from traffic. He said no one through the DOT or the city of Milton told him.
"It's when I saw them digging for the new road right out of the window of the gas station that I noticed—hey, how in the world are you going to connect that road to me? Then I realized. You don't. They dead-ended me," Shaikh told The Gazette.
Design plans for the Milton portion of the bypass were approved in 2005, Wisconsin DOT Regional Director Joe Olson said at the meeting.
But work on the bypass is more than a year from completion. Construction crews are now laying roadbeds for the bypass and working on overpasses for the crossroads of Harmony-Town Hall Road, Townline Road and Henke Road, which will create a system of interchanges along the expansion of Highway 26 in Milton.
Wynn did not make it clear what changes he'd suggest to top state officials, but Shaikh said he needs some kind of direct link to the bypass.
Shaikh said gas station owners in Jefferson, where the state has completed a bypass of Highway 26, have told him they've lost 60 percent of their customer base.
Olson told Shaikh and others Thursday that there's still time for officials to consider potential changes to the highway expansion, but he cautioned that state rules for rural highways usually don't allow exits and interchanges to be closer than two miles apart.
He suggested an interchange in the vicinity of Shaikh's gas station would place exits too close and could create veering hazards, two problems the DOT was trying to alleviate by constructing the bypass.
Shaikh's gas station was built in 1998. Shaikh has owned it since 2002. He said he has invested nearly $2 million to add a McDonald's, a car wash and a beer cooler.
He estimates the station has averaged sales of at least 100,000 gallons of gasoline a month for the last five years. He said it has generated at least $1 million a year in tax revenue despite business tapering off since the Janesville GM plant idled in 2009.
"I have been proud to be a flagship in this city," Shaikh said.
City Administrator Jerry Schuetz and other city officials at the meeting, including Alderman Brett Frazier and officials from the Milton Area Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, said the city is not viewing the Highway 26 bypass as a death knell for businesses.
City officials said they plan to continue working on strategies for businesses, including plans for signs for businesses such as Shaikh's.
Frazier urged Wynn to push future legislation that would require the DOT to do economic impact studies for any businesses with direct access to highways that would see reconstruction.
Sep 3, 2012 at 10:42 p.m.
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oldvet wrote..."He came to this country and was given many incentives that natural born citizens do not get."
What "incentives" are those, exactly, oldvet?
Sep 3, 2012 at 4:37 p.m.
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I was surprised that hwy,26 was not going to remain open going into Milton. I can see the bypass for trucks that want to go around Milton, but why should I comming from Janesville have to go out of my way to backtrack into Milton. I think they should have a lane leaving 26 bypass and staying on Janesville rd. to go into Milton. This bypass just doesn't make sense for those who work and live in between these two towns. I just don't get it. Please consider an exit onto Janesville rd. Please!
Sep 2, 2012 at 8:07 a.m.
Sep 1, 2012 at 2:51 p.m.
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Look what happened to Fort Atkinson.... the place is a dead ghost town now.
Sep 1, 2012 at 2:02 p.m.
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He is just finding out now??? This is old news. Here is a article from April 2009 saying what they were going to do.
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http://gazettextra.com/news/2009/apr/12/...
Sep 1, 2012 at 12:20 p.m.
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mooie....if Wynn did nothing about this you would be complaining that he doesn't care about his constituents. He can't win with you.
Sep 1, 2012 at 12:18 p.m.
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Mooie, I was responding to your comment "We built it" by saying the access road changed AFTER this guy built his business. He came after the original road was built. I do agree that all the expressways we travel on throughout the country have signs that direct people to the businesses off the expressway. He will have to be content with that. The state isn't going to change the plan just for him.
Sep 1, 2012 at 11:37 a.m.
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City Administrator Jerry Schuetz and other city officials at the meeting, including Alderman Brett Frazier and officials from the Milton Area Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, said the city is not viewing the Highway 26 bypass as a death knell for businesses.(( Oh they could not be more wrong, this end of town will dry up, the only people that will visit are locals, unless you have business in Milton you will not stop there, and I dont see anybody going out of there way to stop for gas now..
Sep 1, 2012 at 10:45 a.m.
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I hope he doesn't think they are "picking on him again"
Get a big billboard out there I guess.
Sep 1, 2012 at 9:55 a.m.
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Next he'll be using the race card
Sep 1, 2012 at 8:56 a.m.
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Oldvet
It will be worse than the story suggests to get to the travel center. existing highway 26 south of the travel center will cease to exist both as a designation and as an actual road. Coming from Janesville, if you wish to stop and gas up you will need to exit at the new townhall interchange go north to the new townline overpass road then turn left onto the new henke road overpass then turn left onto the old 26. if you miss that continue on new 26 to the hwy 59 roundabout and come back into milton and turn back onto old 26.
It will not just be this convenience center either. All the businesses on the stretch of old 26 through Milton will suffer because of the difficulty of egress off the new bypass. Jefferson WI also discovered this happenning.
Sep 1, 2012 at 7:44 a.m.
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"The current Highway 26 will end just north of Shaikh's business".
This statement may technically be true because the official Highway 26 designation may end there but the road will not end there. It will exist as it exists now. This story makes it sound much worse than it is. The road continues on into Milton. The travel center will still be accessible from Milton proper.
Sep 1, 2012 at 7:07 a.m.
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mooshooie...the road was THERE when he built the station and McDonalds. They took the road AWAY, kapeesh? Big difference.
Sep 1, 2012 at 12:56 a.m.
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The plans have been in works for 6+ years. If he couldn't figure that out, maybe this is for the best. Besides this guy is loaded. Maybe he could pay for the road. Look what happened when GM got their road.
Sep 1, 2012 at midnight
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I wasn't aware that once all is said and done, that the old(still existing)26 would be shut off from the new 26. In most bypasses I have travelled, the old road remains and is usually called the business highway. For example, you can still use the old 26 to get to Fort and jefferson and it has been renamed business 26. If the existing road is closed off, how will those not wanting to bypass milton, get into Milton? I can say I was quite shocked when I saw how many overpasses were going in on 26. The whole mess makes no sense to me. Sounds like whoever planned this was the same jokers who put perpendicular parking on the west side of Mercy hospital so people could back blindly into oncoming traffic.
Aug 31, 2012 at 11:17 p.m.
Aug 31, 2012 at 8:18 p.m.
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I thought the name was familiar. He argued with Milton about beer selling. http://gazettextra.com/news/2011/aug/17/...
My bet is after he sells his properties, accommodations will be made for the new owners.
Aug 31, 2012 at 6:18 p.m.
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I see this as a major pain in the butt for those living on the east side of Milton. Now you will have to drive almost a mile east on 59, take a stupid round about and then drive another mile or so south to get to the old alignment. Why didn't they make access like the did in Fort?
Add a ramp to merge going south from Janesville st to the bypass. then an off ramp at Henke going north? I forsee John Paul getting very busy as local access from Janesville- Milton.
Aug 31, 2012 at 6 p.m.
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thats the way the burger fries. time to help the unemployed and relocate, to a new building.
Aug 31, 2012 at 4:53 p.m.
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I believe there will be a lot of people complaining about how difficult it will be to travel between Janesville and Milton once the realization of the 26 project comes closer to completion.
Those going north to Milton on John Paul road will find the route to be ridiculous.
When Wright roadway bridge is connected to the existing Wright road there will be no direct access to 26. a driver will need to go all the way to John Paul and the come into Janesville.
Sals garden shop will be at the end of a dead end Bingham road without 26 access.
And Town hall road from Powertown on Hwy 14 north to Milton will have very heavy trafffic that will cross 26 twice on new bridges to get to old 26 in Milton. as will Henke road once Janesville east siders catch onto the new road system.
Note i never mentioned the roundabouts if you take the new 26 to Milton and come in from Highway 59 like the DOT hopes you do.
Doh
It WILL get interesting to say the least
Aug 31, 2012 at 4:37 p.m.
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He bought in 2002? The information was out there at that time that 26 was going to by-pass Milton. I am sorry but now the tax payers are to build a new exit just for one business....please no. I do use the gas station and still will but its too late now.
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