May 13, 2010: US 41 will be removed from these signs at the Marquette interchange and on its short stretch of surface road in Milwaukee in order to run concurrent with the new Interstate 41.
Another 175 miles of interstate highway (140 new), and a moderately annoying numbering situation, have been established in the Midwest.
On April 9, Interstate 41 was officially born, running from just south of the Wisconsin-Illinois state line to Green Bay. It will “replace” US 41 for that entire length, including a duplication with I-94 all the way south of Milwaukee. According to documentation from the Wisconsin DOT, US 41 will not be signed at interchanges and will only exist as a reassurance shield on the mainline after each exit. It can’t be completely decommissioned, since it continues all the way up to its historic end at Copper Harbor, Michigan. (It is an improvement over Arkansas’ complete disavowal of US routes co-signed with interstates, though.)
The numbering systems for north-south interstates (working west to east) and US highways (working east to west) crash into each other in Wisconsin, especially after the creation of Interstate 43 in the 1980s. With a position between I-39 and I-43, the duplication of I-41/US 41 was not inevitable yet a logical outcome given the constraints. (Wisconsin has US 51 and US 53; I-55 and I-57 are lengthy interstates in Illinois.) The corridor has been “Highway 41” for nearly a century now; it will continue to be “Highway 41” no matter the color of the shield.
June 14, 2008: The new I-41 will be added to the right sign at the I-43/894 split southwest of downtown Milwaukee. A US 41 shield might not be included, however.
That said, the redundancy with I-94 south of Milwaukee and continued existence of I-894 in Milwaukee are absurd. The only way it would not be absurd is if the exit numbers were changed to count up heading north since there’s now a north-south interstate. But look just to the west, where I-90’s numbers rule despite the northward extension of I-39, and you can see that’s just not going to happen. The third number in Wisconsin’s second interstate triplex, I-894, stays as the east-west number of an east-west freeway and those exits probably won’t be renumbered either. It’s going to be a wrong-way triplex just like in Cedar Rapids — east will be NB I-43 and SB I-41; west will be SB I-43 and NB I-41.
The red-white-and-blue I-41 shields will not be posted or uncovered until this fall, the press release and a December report from WLUK-TV said. Appleton, Fond du Lac, and Oshkosh, the only cluster of cities their size so far from an interstate, finally get their wish after years and years of work.
Wisconsin ceases to be one of my “clinched interstate” states and I have a future trip to plan. (By the way, Tim, WHERE ARE YOU?)