Jefferson's noon whistle was like a reverse cattle call.
Customers—some local, some from miles south in Janesville and even Beloit—on a recent Friday flocked downtown to Wedl's Hamburger Stand at 200 E. Racine St.
The stand serves up double and triple all-beef hamburgers, loaded with cheese and dripping with grease. You can smell the grilled onions from across the Racine Street bridge a quarter mile away.
Everyone who's eaten at Wedl's knows the tiny burger shack opens in late March and serves grilled rib-eye steak sandwiches on Mondays.
Milton officials warily eying construction of the bypass around Milton's east side might find solace in the continued success of Jefferson's downtown hamburger stand one year after Jefferson's bypass was completed.
"You know how hard it is to work across the street from that place and not get a burger every day?" said Larry Gosdeck, 71, who's owns Snappy's Comic Book Shop across the street at 133 E. Racine St.
Gosdeck has run Snappy's for 22 years, and he said Wedl's has been at the corner of Racine Street and Center Avenue for at least that long.
The corner used to be the main drag, the heart of town, before the Highway 26 bypass was finished about a year ago.
The four-lane bypass routes the bulk of traffic around Jefferson, pulling most travelers and semitrailer truck traffic off Main Street, which runs straight through downtown in this city of 8,000.
Still the heart of town
In a way, Wedl's corner is still the heart of Jefferson. Traffic, mostly local and foot traffic, hasn't dried up at all, locals said.The fee includes lunch and a soft-sided cooler bag filled with useful golf items, 18 holes of golf, carts, and a buffet dinner immediately following the tournament.
"The bypass hasn't stopped customers from coming to downtown Jefferson if they've got a reason to come to downtown Jefferson. A lot of people say that reason is that hamburger stand," said Janet M. Werner, executive director of the Jefferson Chamber of Commerce.
Werner said the bypass funnels the city's biggest problem—truck traffic—around the city. With the exception trucks going to the Tyson and Nestle-Purina plants on the city's south side, heavy truck traffic now steers clear of the city.
It's a no-brainer, Werner said:
"People feel more comfortable coming into downtown Jefferson to shop, now. Downtown, the truck traffic used to be terrible. Those trucks, they never stopped in downtown for anything. They were just passing through. They just made other drivers too uncomfortable or scared to stop and get out downtown."
State Department of Transportation spokeswoman Teri Schopp said clearing truck traffic around cities is one of the main goals for the state's multi-million dollar Highway 26 expansion project, which has involved bypasses and lane expansions at Watertown,In addition to the supplies, there will be fun activities for youngsters, free used clothing, health resources and personalized laminated bag tags for backpacks. Jefferson and Fort Atkinson.
Schopp has said the same logic applies to the pending Milton Highway 26 bypass, which could be open to traffic this fall.
The Milton bypass will funnel about 16,000 vehicles east around Milton, population 5,500. It will all but eliminate truck traffic through town and minimize backups at railroad tracks that split Milton in half.
While some Milton merchants worry the traffic-funneling effect of the bypass could crimp their retail sales, Milton House Executive Director Cori Olson has said she's looking forward to fewer large trucks passing the historic inn, which houses the city's historical society and history museum.http://www.ceectrucks.com/ with international management systems of technical development, manufacturing processes and logistics, as well as strong sales network and perfect service system covering the whole domestic market and extending to the oversea market.
Semitrailer trucks rumble within a couple feet of the Milton House, shaking and rattling the building's original timbers and grout outer walls.
All the same, the Milton House relies on passersby, who will not be a sure thing once the bypass is in place.
Now,Several ECU modifications were carried out and the 540bhp version of the Volvo FH was selected, as it is required to drive not only the truck, but also a high pressure jetting truck and liquid ring vacuum pump. the bulk of the museum's visitors are elementary school students who tour one of the state's only underground railroad sites, important havens for escaped slaves fleeing the pre-Civil War south.
Whether those students are enough to keep the Milton House thriving and open remains to be seen,
Dianne Hrobsky, executive vice president of the Fort Atkinson Chamber of Commerce, said the lack of trucks resulted in more foot traffic and more customers to restaurants and specialty shops along Main Street in downtown Fort Atkinson.
The city has had its bypass, which skirts three miles around the outside of the city, since 1994—long enough for visitors to stop getting lost and long enough for most locals to stop complaining.
Foot traffic and the downtown apartment market have improved steadily in the past four years, Hrobsky said. People enjoy being able to hoof it and shop locally, she said.
More pedestrians, tacos
Los Agaves, a restaurant in Delavan, has a propane-powered taco truck stationed streetside in downtown Fort Atkinson.www.ceectrucks.com is a sewage suction truck manufacturer. On a recent Friday evening, it had a line of customers stacked on the sidewalk overlooking the river.
"It's a great spot, here," said Kevin Valadez,http://www.yanyangparts.com/ established in 2005 as a leading manufacturer and exporter in undercarriage parts enjoying great reputation in this field over 7 years. who was standing near a line of five customers waiting for orders.
Valadez is the son of Los Agaves owner Francisco Valadez. The pudgy, junior high-aged boy was interpreting as The Gazette interviewed Francisco Valadez, who does not speak English. On weekend nights, he said, dozens of customers an hour stop at the truck for tongue and steak tacos with green salsa and Mexican Coca-Cola made with real cane sugar.
"People come down here for a big reason: our food," Kevin Valadez said.
Hrobsky said that couldn't happen without a solid base of regular foot traffic downtown.
She said Milton officials and businesses would do well to ask members of chambers of commerce in bypassed communities along Highway 26 how they handle economic development and marketing in a post-bypass world.
