New Roads, New Approach

"The Marquette Interchange is arguably the most important single component of Wisconsin’s surface transportationinfrastructure. Unfortunately, it is worn out and in urgent need of rebuilding. And because of the state’s currentbudget-deficit situation, the total cost of rebuilding the Marquette — nearly $1.5 billion, using realistic numbers —is beyond the state’s means. Further, there is very little prospect of obtaining significant “extra” federal aid for thisvery large project. And any significant reallocation of existing federal dollars from other Wisconsin projects towardthe Marquette would meet certain opposition.This report proposes an alternative way of rebuilding the Marquette. Instead of scraping together the necessarytax funds by starving other needed transportation projects of funding, or stretching out the project over a decade ormore (during which downtown Milwaukee would suffer greatly), we propose tapping private capital via a public/privatepartnership (PPP). The Marquette is a large and complex bridge. Major bridges are usually funded via long-termrevenue bonds, to be repaid from tolls charged to users. This is a typical application of the PPP approach in transportation." Editor's note: The link below is to a PDF document.