Overview
Every Milwaukee Brewers home game at American Family Field sends a wave of traffic onto westbound I-94 near General Mitchell Boulevard. For years, closing that lane safely meant sending law enforcement into live traffic to perform a manual lane closure. Setup and teardown took 15 minutes each, 30 minutes in total. Together with the Milwaukee Brewers team, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) set out to change this. As part of the I-94 East-West Freeway project, WisDOT installed the Versilis Automated Lane Closure System to manage lane closures during post-game traffic and special events. For WisDOT, the technology had already proven itself on the Hoan Bridge in Milwaukee. At the I-94 site, it is now used during Brewers home games, and the Sheriff’s Department and WisDOT have given it strong positive feedback.
Project Scope
The system uses one SwiftSign and seven SwiftGates, with gate arms ranging from 2 to 11 feet to gradually close the left lane. The tapered automated gates direct motorists travelling in the left lane to merge into the adjacent lane, allowing post-game traffic coming from the ramp to enter the left lane safely and improving traffic flow at this critical location. Law enforcement officers deploy and retract the gates from their vehicles using a Smart Handheld Controller, so no one has to step into live lanes to set up a manual closure. Officers can deploy the gates during a rolling closure, confirming that no traffic is present as the gates swing into position. The series of gates deploy or retract in under a minute, turning a 30-minute manual operation into a rolling closure with one minute to deploy and one minute to retract. The gates are designed for use during special events and Brewers home games. WisDOT selected the Versilis SwiftGate system for several key features: MASH crash test compliance for vehicle occupant safety, a high-visibility design that improves motorist compliance, reducing gate impacts and maintenance needs, and the ability to mount the solar-powered SwiftSign and SwiftGate on existing infrastructure.