Due to the pandemic, it had been awhile since I traveled out to University Ridge Golf Course southwest of Madison for either the American Family Insurance Championship or just to play the course. So that is why I was so surprised by the new transportation infrastructure in place as you leave the Beltway and travel down Highway 18.
For years, getting to U Ridge involved taking two lane roads through relatively quiet countryside out to Fitchburg–where the course was surrounded by barren rolling hills. But then, those hills started filling up with houses. And not just quaint little three-bedroom ranches, but the large “McMansions” with four and five bedrooms, three stall garages and large fenced-in yards built upon cul-de-sacs in winding developments with phony names like “Woodland Fields” and “Sienna Ridge”.
And with all of that development came the associated commercial development: gas stations, convenience stores, coffee shops, therapeutic massage places, and restaurants. The two-lane roads leading out to these developments were overwhelmed, so the state and the county decided to expand. And boy, did they ever expand.
Highway 18 is now a six (and in some places eight) lane mini-interstate with overpasses, interchanges, and frontage roads. The interchanges are huge, with divided turn lanes that make long, sweeping curves. I have to admit, I didn’t know where to look for the turn signals at a couple of them because where they make you stop is hundreds of feet away from where you turn to get onto an on-ramp. Sometimes they were semi-hidden under the overpass itself. I also found it hilarious that the first couple of miles have a speed limit of 40 miles per hour, taking the crown of “least observed speed limit in Wisconsin” from the previous titleholder: the four-lane stretch of Highway 45 just north of Antigo where you are supposed to be going 35.
Tiny McKee Road leading to the course itself is now a boulevard on steroids. Six lanes divided, with a dedicated bus lane and a bike lane creating more huge intersections which require large overhead signage to help drivers figure out where they are going and stoplights replacing all of the old four-way stop signs. And of course, the requisite “all purpose trail” running on both sides of the road. All of that had been under construction my last few times down to Madison, but I couldn’t imagine just how massive everything was going to be.
But what I find most-interesting is that all of this concrete and infrastructure has been put in place at the very center of the anti-private transportation headquarters of the state. Nowhere else are there as many people committed to making driving your own car as difficult and inconvenient as Madison. Want to replace on-street parking with bike lanes? They do it in Madison! Tear down parking ramps for additional apartment buildings? They are doing it in Madison!
And those driving these gleaming new roads out to the burgeoning bedroom communities of Verona and Fitchburg are those that have found their financial success in the ever-growing bureaucracy of both the University of Wisconsin System and state government itself–two entities that are aggressively pushing greater urban density and growth of public sector transportation, to “take all those cars off the street”. They also elect the state lawmakers that oppose highway expansion projects in the rest of the state, and they are the ones that provide financial backing to environmental groups that file lawsuits seeking to block more miles of lanes, like the long-delayed Highway 23 project between Fond du Lac and Plymouth–which should have been completed in plenty of time for last year’s Ryder Cup in Kohler but was stuck in the courts for almost a decade while arguing over traffic counts and threatened butterflies.
So just know that those so “concerned” about urban sprawl and who tell us to “take the bus”, have a much easier ride into work now–and to the golf course.
