EXCELLENTWAY SOCIETY™ COMMENT
1/20/2023 1 Of 4
TO:
I-94 East-West Freeway Comment Period
Wisconsin Department Of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
Dear Good People!
Thanks for making Wisconsin roads and driving them, mostly a wonderful experience!
I am Hawk, from The Excellentway Society.
I believe that driving and walking spaces can be better made, both by product and
by design. Our major roadways should be like grand monuments, not “just a road”!
We should build them with intent on their permanence and dedicated to excellence.
We should build them using designers and contractors who are not required to
constantly cut corners, but who are trying to improve them every time they are made,
striving for excellence!
LOL! Why, people should come here, just to see the Milwaukee Super Freeway, with
souvenirs being sold to remember the experience!
Since as long as Lake Michigan exists, there will probably be a city here with an east to
west travel path for the foreseeable future, such a pathway should be better designed,
stronger, and more permanent. It should be Earthquake and natural disaster resistant
from design to construction. A path worthy of fine sunny days, and still worthy for escape
use and travel during bad weather or any other possible disaster.
A freeway can be more than just a solid roadway for vehicles to travel. It can be a
statement of better safety in modern times, and a beacon of hope for the future, more
than just a place for speeding cars.
Let us consider first, the raising of our attitudes and opinions that it can be something
wonderful and hopeful to all who use it! Not just a roadway! It is something more
valuable than dollars per square foot, for it represents a way to safely live and work
our work and manage our projects, our very lives, in this area.
It can be a better well-made path, indeed a monument of sorts, a pyramid sideways, LOL!
It can be much more excellent than current designs.
At the very least, a mere 5% of every new project should be devoted to experimental
sections that would constantly attempt to improve our efforts, instead of stupidly just
repeating our past flaws. This should be a Standard Operating Procedure for all projects,
big and small, within the United States. An excellent view, we think! An excellent idea,
we think!
Of course I understand the difficulties and problems associated with such ideas, but that
just indicates some little additional work, not that they are without merit or value or
consideration, and must be dismissed out of hand, which we of course, routinely witness.
© 2023 Hawk
EXCELLENTWAY SOCIETY™ COMMENT
1/20/2023 2 Of 4
I would ask you to consider the following, if you are going to spend an enormous amount
of money and design effort to improve the Milwaukee area East/West corridor;
1. WALKWAY:
Add a covered walkway/bike path along the length of the freeway, a few trees, flowers,
picnic tables, etc. Create a safe person/bike solid concrete walkway along the south side of the
freeway, such that it is exposed to the sunlight, not in the shadow of the freeway. A path for
people, pets, and bikers that runs the length of it, wide enough and of the same strength to
possibly fit tracks or a monorail system in the future, keeping the walkway, but as may be
required someday, planned for in advance of the need. Cover this with clear polycarbonate
rounded panels using stainless steel frames. Possibly heat this area. Use solar cells on the
south face of walls or structures to help provide lighting and heating.
Find a safe way to allow access on or off the nearby freeway, but always a wall between
pedestrians and vehicles. A safe place to wait if vehicle is broken down, yet restricted by gate
or some manner, so that a pet, toddler, or confused person, could not enter the freeway.
2. CONCRETE:
Use the best concrete, something that might last 1000 years. Consider building it in blocks
that could be replaced in entire sections. The Greeks created concrete that lasted more than
5000 years, and we just use the cheapest materials possible, provided by the lowest estimated
cost with contractors cutting every corner, just to get it done. It is a monument to the absurd,
demonstrating that humans and human movement, are not worth the effort. Use stainless steel
rebar and better designed shapes of rebar to better hold concrete together.
PLEASE, at the very least, keep it all the same light gray color, and as flat as possible.
A new roadway should at the very least be capable of the same exact color, and flat. Not uneven
and full of bumps, different colors, and failing at the expansion joints within traffic lanes.
Keep the expansion cracks out of the lane itself, being placed center of the lane markings when
possible. Also keep the concrete strong and resilient by not burying anything in it, possibly then
needing to be dug out later. All utilities surface mounted, stainless steel conduit or piping used,
this infrastructure being kept a part of the overall design view, with an ease of maintenance assured.
3. LIGHTS:
Light it from the sides. Lights can be built into sidewalls or raised areas on the sides and/or middle
of the freeway. Remove overhead lighting and light poles, which can contribute to accidents and
deaths on the freeway. Increase the lighting. Use solar cells on south facing surfaces to help
power the lighting. Use the lighting method to warn traffic of slowdowns or accidents, having it
flash backwards from the accident or slowing area, to warn approaching cars, especially helpful
during fog and drivers speeding during foggy conditions.
4. CLEAN IT:
Consider methods to use pressurized air and/or water to clean the surface area, virtually wiping the
surface clean, into a collection area, to be used automatically during off hours. Possibly use small
tubes and openings in the concrete to drain rain water away, and then later, reverse it to spray
cleaning liquids over the surface. Oils, gas, hydraulic fluids, parts of vehicles, rubber pieces, litter,
are constantly being left on the freeway, some heavier parts or pieces being a danger to vehicles
as one drops it and the next spins it up into a windshield.
© 2023 Hawk
EXCELLENTWAY SOCIETY™ COMMENT
1/20/2023 3 Of 4
5. SIZE:
Yes, such a roadway or freeway must be large enough to handle expected traffic for at least the
next 100 years. Now is the time to improve for the future, since at any time past the present, the
opportunity and even the will to do so, may not exist, and even the supplies necessary to build it,
or even the space needed, may not be available.
6. HEAT IT:
Somewhere in the world, humans are heating the pavement of roads or runways so that they
can be used in the most challenging winter conditions, and help prevent accidents. If not, we
should be the first! Not one person should perish on the freeways due to snow or ice. In times
of bad weather, it should be the best place to travel, not the most dangerous.
We are heating the bus stop concrete for a few travelers so they won’t slip or fall, and yet allow
hundreds of thousands of people to travel on ice and snow at 60 miles an hour!
There is no excuse for not heating the main roadways, no matter the cost, to keep them safe
and to keep salt and chemicals from entering our lakes and streams, which are also used for
our drinking water.
7. HONOR/WATCH IT:
The freeways have become a place of dishonor and lack of respect, and it will only get worse,
since it is not being addressed. It is actually being encouraged, since violators have little reason
to expect to be apprehended. If you create such a space or medium for humans to use, you are
also responsible for keeping it a safe and honorable space. Increase the video observation and
create an immediate response. Set a speed limit and auto ticket anyone going more than 10 miles
over the limit, or being reckless. Repeat offenders not allowed on the freeway.
Any person driving on to a freeway should know that their every move is being watched.
But, then more than that, if they deliberately drive like an idiot, or try to hurt people, or even if they
drive without two readable and correct license plates, or if they are driving a stolen vehicle or just
involved in a crime, that an instant response will happen, and before they have the time to exit.
Possibly have law enforcement stations with slat garage doors that would suddenly raise and two
squads emerge to apprehend people built into the sides of the freeway, behind safe walls, a safe
place for the officers and a warning to drivers. This would place officers in a safe place nearest
where they are needed the most. Drivers would not know if there were officers manning such
stations or not, and their existence by itself, might provide a deterrent effect.
Possibly add trouble stations, having a semi-covered roof on the side of the freeway to cover
the vehicle, and then a wall with a safe covered space, picnic table, etc. next to it, other side of
the wall. Encourage persons with a disabled vehicle to wait behind the wall, instead of in the
vehicle which could be further hit by traffic. If you litter, drive recklessly, drive faster than 10 miles
over the limit, are drunk and go the wrong way, or if you have an accident, are injured, require
some kind of help, there should be an immediate and automatic response.
Consider private companies to monitor and patrol the freeways, or paid volunteers, in cooperation
with law enforcement. Watch every inch of it, every day and night, and bring some honor back to
this space, this roadway, instead of the lawless wild west it is now. Years past, you might go months
before noticing some idiot driver. Now at almost every use of this freeway, you can witness an idiot
and dangerous driver.
Give the freeways the respect that we deserve.
© 2023 Hawk
EXCELLENTWAY SOCIETY™ COMMENT
1/20/2023 4 Of 4
8. EV CHARGE STATIONS:
Yes, since electric vehicles are here to stay, create safe, off to the side, EV charging stations,
funds from which would help pay for the freeway. Make the prices higher than average to
encourage only emergency stops, not day to day usage. Possibly next to the law enforcement
stations suggested, also able to use them.
9. MONEY:
Since money is the one reason cited most often, as to why things must remain the same, the
mediocre and the same flaws repeated. Since even deaths from accidents are not enough to
persuade the use of better designs over the cost. Since money is the God of our society, and
basically runs our lives…
We would ask that you consider that wisdom is more valuable and worthy than money, that good
design should be used despite the cost, that people are more important than this tool called
“money” that we invented to barter for things.
That money is money, but the good is priceless.
Since somewhat ironically, only those who have some amount of wealth or ability to change
things, can really actually do so;
We beg you to consider the wisdom of using volunteers, donated efforts, public praise and
acknowledgement, and every other possible honorable method instead of dollars, to improve
our roadways and our lives in general, and remove the idea that progress and better lives
cannot be improved since only limited funds are available. We must proceed with more wisdom,
despite the lack of dollars, or because of the lack of dollars.
All around the world, the impossible is being accomplished despite the lack of funds.
We should do the same.
Some of the money collected from speeders should be used to fund costs, solar cells used to
help provide free electricity, and even use business sponsors and let them name sections of the
freeway for their support, or sell advertising space on certain walls for small and neatly done
simple advertising, etc.
9. WISDOM/EFFORT:
Yes, we should be wiser and as excellent as possible, creating the best kinds of roadways,
bar none. Instead of working from the present and finding ways a more modern and safer
freeway is impossible, we should imagine what would be excellent and work backwards from
there to make it happen!
Nowhere else in all the world should there be a better roadway, or place, for that matter.
If we can help, count us in!
We hope that you keep in mind that we are proud of the efforts of the DOT and associated
designers and workers, and we thank them for their efforts, and submit these comments to
encourage an even more excellent place, for this Milwaukee, Wisconsin and these, our
United States Of America.
Hawk and The Excellentway Society™
5202 West Wisconsin Avenue
Milwaukee, WI 53208
414/476.4295
© 2023 Hawk