"On schedule"...as a PRIME EXAMPLE of EVERYTHING THAT IS WASTEFUL AND WRONG in the land use and road construction "planning & implementation" in this country, state and county at the present time! We can't maintain the roads we already have - witness USH 14 either side of Janesville - and yet we build monumental tributes to the extreme of inefficiency such as this absurd STH 26 widening and by-pass and its attendant and unnecessary town road bridge overpasses and semi-truck UNfriendly traffic circles!

And it won't be long now until the Milton business are crying about lack of patrons brought into the city. Want to see an example? Just take a drive through Ft. Atkinson to see what happened to that once-thriving downtown strip...virtually nothing left there but bars, resale shops and empty storefronts.

"Lord what fools these mortals be"!

Why not cover the whole world in concrete and forget about the farms, the animals and the gas wasted on all these stupid new roads. It has turned into a maze and all I hear from people are complaints.

of course, janesvillean, and I was only referring to the corridor between Milton and Janesville...but my point still stands; the groundwater recharge area was on the books for protection way before this project ever came to fruition and well before the Smart Growth plans...I've not always lived in the area, so I came to this town after all this planning came about, or I would have definitely been there to bust their chops about the M-H depressional area...

That phrase refers to the ENTIRE 26 corridor, i.e. all the communities from Janesville to Lake Mills (or even Waupun), partarican1. Obviously the 26 segment between Janesville and Milton is limited access. Local land use decisions were reflected in the project plan which was developed beginning in the late 1990s with input from local units of government and the public. That said, this project preceded the rules requiring Smart Growth plans and those have had to conform to this rather than the other way around.

spur development along the corridor? what ever happened to protecting the Milton-Harmony groundwater recharge area? guess it went the way of the wind...we were told by the project manager that spurring new development was not the reason for the project, but to improve semi truck traffic flow on HWY 26....

There may be some businesses that depend solely on through traffic but over time these will either move or be replaced by businesses taking advantage of the interchanges. The increased transportation access will also help spur industrial or distribution sector businesses (many of them in the industrial park surrounding the interchange). Most important, the truck traffic being moved to a separated highway will be safer for driving as well as the towns that traffic used to go through.
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(I well remember the 1970s when the state wanted to make Racine St. a four-lane "highway" right where it is, barreling through the center of town, to accommodate Hwy 11. That's the alternative.)
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As for travel between Milton and Janesville, the existing 26 (Janesville St.) will connect to Henke Rd. due south; Parkview will connect to Townline and then the interchange at Harmony Town Hall Rd. will be accessible. John Paul will also still connect via McCormick instead of the current "Y" intersection. It's not going to change the distance all that much. Ultimately it's impossible to make a new road project that pleases or improves convenience for *everyone*.
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For instance, my personal long term plan for the area (because I want a northern entrance for Janesville) would be an interchange at Cty Trk M, halfway between 26 and Newville, and ideally the bypass would have linked up to the Interstate there. That wouldn't have cut all the truck traffic going through Milton, though (you couldn't get it past Milton without putting the interchange near Townline, and the state would never approve one that close to 26). If you want consolation, the state wanted a limited-access highway all the way to the interchange, without any stoplight at Kettering, and Janesville opposed that pretty vigorously, as I understand.
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The planning process for this all took place several years ago and there was public and municipal input at that time. This wasn't by any means a secret process that is suddenly being sprung on us.

and what's with the 15+ lights at Harmony Townhall Road? it seems wasteful...imo

Quote:"The aim of the project is to enhance safety by limiting access, boost traffic capacity and spur development along the Highway 26 corridor." How do you spur development by cutting off communities from this "bypass"..Oh yea by making it even harder for people living in the local communities to get from one place to another. People living in Milton who used to simply go south on hwy 26, now will have to travel EAST on 59, go roundabout to get on the bypass, then go south, traveling more than a mile out of their way, just to get back to where they started. To shop at several businesses along 26 (outside of Janesville, they are making special frontage roads just for them) a trip of up to several miles will need to be made - if those places still stay in business... Studies already mentioned in this newspaper have shown that there has been a decline in business in each town this road has already bypassed...and at this end there is no way to easily use the back roads to "bypass the bypass".... Try John Paul lately? 5 minutes sitting in line at 26 to make a right turn...