Zoo Interchange North Leg Project

Late last year, Michels Road & Stone put the finishing touches on a 1.7-mile reconstruction project of Interstate 41 in Wauwatosa.

The multiphase Zoo Interchange project expanded the highway from six to eight lanes and widened on- and off-ramps, greatly improving the overall safety for the roughly 144,000 vehicles that travel through the urban freeway every day.

Additional improvements included extended sight distances, high-performance concrete pavement, storm water drainage system improvements, noise pollution mitigation systems, Intelligent Transportation System upgrades and expansion, and a new railroad structure spanning the widened freeway.

The project required more than 200,000 square yards of concrete pavement, 387,000 tons of aggregate and nearly 457,000 cubic yards of common excavation to create the roadway, eight bridges, six noise walls, 14 retaining walls and 20 sign structures.

“The project was unique as it included so many scopes of work in a relatively small workspace,” said Tony Straseske, senior project manager at Michels Corp. “The project included construction of a bridge carrying the Union Pacific Railroad over the freeway, which required construction of a temporary bridge and shoofly lines to maintain rail traffic during its construction.

“Many elements of this structure were built under extremely demanding work schedules to minimize the effects of constricting traffic flow past the structure work.”

A lot of the work was very technical and required specialized equipment and construction materials, Straseske added.

“Being a freeway reconstruction project located in the middle of the city, access to the work zone was limited and space for equipment and materials was a scarce commodity.”