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Thoroughly Modern Milton

For years, I’ve said it to any traveler headed for my house: “Just come into town on 26, and turn at the stoplight.”

“The stoplight” is the stoplight, the only one that resided within Milton’s boundaries. At the intersection of State Highways 26 and 59, just a stone’s throw from where Joseph Goodrich set down roots in Prairie du Lac, this marvel of electronic traffic control is a shining monument to progress in thoroughly modern Milton.

And for years, it stood alone. The single signal set us apart from lesser villages and kept us up with the Joneses in nearby Edgerton. It stood alone, although one could argue (and one would be right) that we could really use a second one at the intersection of Madison Avenue and John Paul Road; waiting traffic on John Paul often stretches out far enough to resemble a parade lineup.

As of this week, Milton is a one-light town no more. The new, re-routed Highway 59 is open, and with this new intersection comes a new set of signals.

Looking at the east side of Milton now, it’s hard to believe that not so long ago, a lonely two-lane highway entered town next to a football practice field. Now we have a supermarket, restaurants, medical facilities, and four lanes entering the city not only from the south, but from the east. The new 59 offers a preview of what we can expect when the Highway 26 bypass is constructed east of the city between 2012 and 2014.

I’ve been watching this construction progress all year long as I made my daily commute. It didn’t really faze me until the first evening that I saw the stoplights flashing yellow, and the illuminated lanes stretching east.

It was a surreal sight, a row of endless street lights cutting through the vast empty field toward the ethanol plant on County M. I expected to see the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson standing out there, glove in hand, eagerly awaiting a fly ball but instead getting run over by an ethanol tanker.

Curiosity got the best of me and I had to take a drive down the highway as soon as it was possible. Being an avid biker who used to take County M out of Milton – a piece of road that is now closed because M has also been re-routed – the first thing I noticed is that there is a bike lane.

There are also not one, not two, but three roundabouts. So Milton is currently winning the Rock County roundabout war. Currently, these do nothing but provide seemingly unnecessary curves to drive around, but rudimentary roads branching off the circles hint at the development to come.

Driving along this new route, I completely lost all perspective. Despite the obvious landmarks of United Ethanol and the Cargill Grain Tower, it seemed like I was in a foreign land in which I had never before traveled, simply because I was approaching this area from an entirely new direction.

When I got to the end of the new route – lo and behold, there was another stoplight! I turned around before I got to it and headed back towards the city, so I couldn’t tell whether this was a permanent fixture, or a temporary measure. A third one would really put us ahead of Edgerton.

Even so, there is a possibility that the stoplight will one day be removed. Depending on how traffic patterns change, the original signal at the former Highway 59 (East High Street) and 26 may be deemed unnecessary.

I suspect that they may radically change, because when the 26 bypass is completed in 2014, East High Street will no longer go through toward Whitewater. East High will not go over, under, or across the bypass; the new 26 will simply slice it in two, turning each side into a dead end. It strikes me as odd, and makes me wonder if there is a legitimate planning reason for it, or if it’s simply a cost-saving measure to avoid building a bridge.

If the stoplight ends up coming down, it will mean a major, major change in Milton.

I’ll have to change the way I tell people to find my house.

Jim Lyke is a Milton native who works in Janesville. He participates in local community theater and writing projects.