Interurban Trail repaving work scrapped for this year

Repaving of the Ozaukee Interurban Trail north of I-43 will be further delayed and not take place until next year.

“We will be unable to start repaving of the northern trail this year. We are still working on the process with the railroad and the state Department of Transportation,” Ozaukee County Planning and Parks Director Andrew Struck said last week, referencing a snafu with the Union Pacific Railroad crossing at Belgium. “We are hoping to do it next year.”

That will make it more than two years since county officials first proposed repaving the trail, a regional draw for thousands of bicyclists.

The stretch of trail from Grafton to Port Washington was repaved almost immediately, but plans for the 13 miles of trail north of Port came to a halt almost as soon as plans for the Vantage Data Center Lighthouse Campus were announced.

At first, it was feared the trail would have to be rerouted because of the data center, even to the point of building a bike bridge over I-43.

Changes in the bike route would have endangered the DOT grant paying for the project.

But when those fears were allayed, complications arose from the Union Pacific Railroad, which said the trail encroached on its right-of-way near Belgium, where the property lines are a mishmash involving private and public parcels as well as the railroad and the bike trail, which follows the path of another railroad, the former Interurban Electric Railway.

“It’s been an ongoing saga,” Struck said last year.

The county has hired consultants to help navigate the issues with the railroad and the DOT, which required that a real estate consultant complete property appraisals and coordinate other real estate requirements at a cost of $24,810.

In addition to those issues, the railroad is requiring the county to pay for flaggers during the repaving process, something expected to cost the county $20,000 to $30,000, even though none of the work will be on railroad property.

Struck said trucks involved in data center construction will not be using the railroad crossing. 

The grant covering the approximately  $1.2 million to pave the trail north of Port Washington cannot be used to pay for the flaggers or real estate consultant, Struck said.

The Interurban Trail is a paved 30-mile multi-use bicycle and pedestrian path that traverses the county from north to south, following the route of the former Interurban Electric Railway.

The current trail is 10 feet wide with one-foot gravel shoulders on either side. The repaving project will widen the trail to 12 feet to satisfy federal regulations.