Elected officials team up to protect Hoan Bridge (4:34 p.m. 8/3/09)

Three Milwaukee County Board supervisors and Rep. Christine Sinicki have joined to lobby the state to drop any consideration of tearing down the Hoan Bridge.

The newly formed “Coalition to Save the Hoan” will lobby the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to get more details on the cost of rebuilding the aging Milwaukee bridge as-is. Milwaukee County supervisors Patricia Jursik, Marina Dimitrijevic and Christopher Larson on Monday announced the new coalition. Sinicki, D-Milwaukee, pledged to organize a town hall meeting to discuss the bridge.

WisDOT’s six-year highway reconstruction plan has Interstate 794 slated for construction work by 2013. A report prepared by HNTB Corp., Milwaukee, considered the option of rebuilding the high-rise bridge as an at-grade roadway.