Highway 26 bypass under construction

October 23, 2009 • Jennifer Garcia  
Filed under Regional

There will soon be a new bypass on Highway 26, much like the bypass going around Whitewater, that will allow drivers to go around Jefferson instead of through it.

“The project first started in 1999 when Jefferson, Watertown and Milton requested that bypasses be created,” Project Manager Mark Vesperman said.

The Jefferson area wanted a bypass because there were too many vehicles going through town, primarily big trucks.

“The new bypass will take out one half of the cars out of town and put them on the bypass,” Vesperman said.

This major construction project is definitely a costly one, with an estimated cost of $82 million for the Jefferson bypass and the cost of the full project being predicted around $445 million.

Projects like these are initially funded with 80 percent federal funds and 20 percent state funds. However, because there is not enough federal funds to cover all of their transportation projects, some projects can be funded with as much as 100 percent state funds.  Because of this, one might wonder where these state funds come from.

“The state and federal dollars for the projects comes from the gas tax – or users of the highways and streets.  If costs go up higher than anticipated then some projects could be delayed depending on gas tax revenues and federal funding allocation to our state,” Vesperman said.

The 48 miles of construction is a collaboration of 8 segments: Janesville to Milton, Highway 59 relocation at Milton, Milton to Fort Atkinson, Fort Atkinson bypass, Jefferson bypass, Jefferson to Johnson Creek, Johnson Creek to Watertown, and Watertown to Highway 60 East.

About half of the expansions are going to be alongside the existing corridor.  The other half, which is mainly the bypasses, are being constructed at new locations.

“There are over 300 people working on construction for the total project,” Vesperman said.

The Jefferson bypass will contain a 7.5-mile freeway.  Highway 26 traffic will be led by four lanes with a grass median; this will lead Highway 26 traffic around the west side of Jefferson, rather than going through Jefferson to get to your destination.  There will be four lanes because of the increase in traffic and accidents.

“There will be less congestions, which means less crashes,” Vesperman said.

With four lanes, it will look like the interstate.

The Department of Transportation [DOT] chose to go around the west side of Jefferson because there were the least number of environmental impacts and more benefits.  Environmental meaning no wetlands, parks, historical areas, or areas owned by Native Americans.  It is also closer to schools, which is beneficial for students.

“We had to buy and relocate 2 businesses and 5 houses.  We will pay for moving expenses and try to find a comparable home for them to live in,” Vesperman said.

“There will be three interchanges when building the bypass.  One will be at US 18  and the other on the north side of Jefferson.  Bridges will be built at County Highways J, N, W, Popp Road, and Jahn Road so people can travel over or under WIS 26,” Vesperman said.

The Real Estate Acquisition was scheduled to begin in July of 2006 and is planned to continue until February of 2009.

The Final Design and Construction Plans preparation was planned to start in January of 2007 through August of 2009.  Construction started during the fall of 2008 where bridges started being built over the Crawfish River and the Rock River.

The roadway and interchange construction work will be constructed over a three year period; from 2009 and hopefully finish at the end of 2010.

Tags:

 Email This Story        Print This Story