LETTER: Action is needed to protect bike trail near data centers

To Ozaukee Press:

I’ve been riding my bike through Knellsville lately, and have seen a lot of utility work going on. I just read in the Ozaukee Press that Mayor Neitzke says the Ozaukee Interurban Trail possibly needs to be rerouted. 

Makes sense to me: They want to move large quantities of building materials for the data centers in that area and trucks would have to cross the bike trail. The bike trail is pretty well used and it would not be a good thing to have to interrupt the flow of material every time there’s a biker, walker or runner passing by.

I found it quite astounding that the same article quotes Ozaukee County Planning and Parks Director Andrew Struck, the person who oversees the operation of the bike trail, saying, “I have not heard anything regarding this.” He goes on to say, “We therefore are proceeding with repaving the trail in this location, so I am surprised about this change because we specifically reached out about this potential with our paving project.”

The article does state that the safety of the trail is already not ideal in that location; it crosses a hotel parking lot entrances and two highways. Adding monster trucks trying to move materials into the area as fast as possible won’t help matters.

The idea of rerouting the trail and adding a bridge over I-43 was mentioned.

It would be nice, but I’m not holding my breath for that. There are possible ways to make this happen, perhaps somehow using the overpass near Allen-Edmunds. Regardless, the bike trail route seems to be a bit of a problem at the moment, what with the data centers and all. I sure hope we don’t lose the bike trail, or have another break in the continuity of the trail.

When I ride through Knellsville, I think about how soon all that open land will be gone. It’s really beautiful out there. I invite everyone to see it before it’s changed forever.

But I understand progress. We are going to be paying the price in increased energy emissions for sure, at the very least. I would hope that with all the land the data center will gobble up, perhaps some of it could be used for some renewable energy like solar and wind.

Robert Mueller

Port Washington