The City of Milwaukee is exploring how it can purchase a 6-mile freight railroad line through the city's north and west sides in order to advance a long-planned walking and biking trail.
The Zoning, Neighborhoods and Development Committee voted Tuesday to study a possible purchase of the North 30th Street Corridor rail line and right-of-way from approximately West Wisconsin Avenue to West Villard Avenue.
The rail segment is currently owned by
Watco, a Kansas-based company that owns rail lines nationally, and is used a couple times daily to connect freight cars to other railroads in the area.
The company has not expressed that it wishes to sell, but it has outlined its vision for the corridor, which a sale-leaseback agreement with the city could help accomplish, city officials say.
Long term, both parties want to see increased industrial development alongside the rail corridor and more use out of the railway itself, according to city attorney
Evan Goyke, who previously worked on this project as a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly.
In the short term, both parties want to put an end to dumping and other illegal activities that happen on the property.
"Last week, we gave a tour of the corridor, and I've never seen it in worse shape: the amount of illegal dumping and, frankly, human habitation, the abandonment, the vacancy rate of the properties throughout the corridor," Goyke said.
Under city ownership, the railway itself could be leased back to Watco for freight use, while the corridor is redeveloped for mixed-use transportation.
Milwaukee's walking and biking trail plans
Discussed since at least 2016, city officials and trail advocates envision a 7-mile paved, shared-use trail running next to the rail line from Havenwoods State Forest, 6141 N. Hopkins St., to the Hank Aaron State Trail east of American Family Field.
The trail would connect with the Oak Leaf Trail and the Beerline Trail, creating a 17.5-mile connected “Milwaukee Loop” around the city as part of The Route of the Badger —a trail network project with a vision of connecting 705 miles of trail across southeastern Wisconsin.
"If we wanted to do this (project) today, we couldn't actually afford to do it," Goyke said. "This legacy infrastructure built more than 100 years ago is a gift today, if we repurpose it in ways to reflect the modern economy."
A feasibility study was completed in 2020, and $700,000 in state funds were secured last year to support an engineering study, which is set to begin in May, according to Goyke. That study will determine entry and exit points and where the trail may need to come to street level.
The project also received a $1.6 million grant from the federal government in January, although it's unknown if the grant will still be awarded under the Trump administration.
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