Just as commuters break in the new Marquette Interchange, state highway officials are ready to start selling plans for rebuilding the Zoo Interchange. Public hearings are next week.

With 345,900 vehicles a day passing through each day, the interchange is the busiest in the state. Designed in 1957, it was expected to handle 115,000 vehicles a day. Traffic there has increased about 12 percent in the past decade. Accidents occur about two to three times more than the state average for interchanges.

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation has three plans, but appears to lean toward the major rebuild option.

"The results of traffic analysis concluded that spot improvements alone would not adequately address congestion and safety issues in the Zoo Interchange corridor," the DOT write-up states. "The spot improvement alternatives also did not address the outdated design issues including left-hand exit and entrance ramps.

"The Zoo Interchange study team determined that the spot improvement alternatives would be screened out from further study and the modernization alternatives should be analyzed further.

"The modernization alternatives feature a multi-level system interchange with right side exits and entrances. This design reduces weaving maneuvers and provides safer operations."

Environmentalists appear to support the least radical reconstruction plans. The state wants to decide on the final plans by next spring and start construction in 2012.

Two public hearings are scheduled: Oct. 27 -- 2 to 7 p.m., at State Fair Park, Tommy Thompson Youth Center; Oct. 30 -- 4 to 8 p.m., Wauwatosa West High School Cafeteria, 11400 W. Center St.

Parking Problems: A Milwaukee County Board committee nixed an idea to put parking meters along Milwaukee's lakefront, but some supervisors suggest the idea is not entirely dead.

County Exec Scott Walker floated the idea in his budget proposal along with a plethora of other fee hikes, such as a $6 increase in golf fees. The Parks Committee rejected the parking meter plan this week, but the full board and the finance committee still could approve them.

Smoking With the Facts: Sure, the source may be somewhat biased, but the International Premium Cigar and Pipe Dealers Association makes some interesting statements regarding smoking bans. The city of Fond du Lac this week banned smoking in bars.

According to Chris McCalla, the cigar and pipe group's legislative director, smoking bans are both bad for business and based on erroneous assumptions regarding secondhand smoke. About 30 shops in Wisconsin are members of the group and McCalla says they pay millions in taxes a year.

"History has shown that legislatively imposed smoking bans often lead to lower tax revenues from these businesses, widespread layoffs and even forced closings," he said.

McCalla also asserted that the second-hand smoke argument is over-inflated.

"People should stop blaming secondhand smoke for every ailment under the sun," he said. "The 2006 Surgeon General's Report clearly concluded that secondhand smoke should not be considered a legitimate health or environmental hazard."

He added that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is quiet on smoking bans because tests show that toxins do not exceed its legal limits.

"Our nation's founders opposed government intervention into matters of private property -- like businesses -- where owners have the right to decide whether or not to allow smoking on their premises," McCalla said.

No Gambling on Casino: The Menominee Indian Tribe, sensing the odds were not in its favor, temporarily suspended its application to the Bureau of Indian Affairs for a monster casino in Kenosha.

"The Menominee project has strong support among career staff in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but despite that support, the Tribe has been informed that Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is looking to reject the Menominee application due to his personal opposition to off-reservation gaming, rather than any legal basis for a denial," tribe spokesperson Evan Zeppos said.

"If the current administration issues a decision on the Menominee proposal, we now believe it will be a denial based on personal and political motives and not on the project's merits and applicable law."

The tribe apparently feels positive toward a presidential victory by Barack Obama, since it said it wants to wait for the next administration to take over before it resumes the licensing process.

"BIA staff knows that, by law, the Menominee project should be approved," Zeppos said. Rejecting the tribe's bid apparently would be "crass politics."

New to Use from DCD: Milwaukee's Department of City Development is in the e-publishing business, planning to put out a bi-weekly e-mail highlighting what it is doing for us. The first edition of "Building a Stronger Milwaukee" hit inboxes this week.

"Under the direction of Mayor Tom Barrett and in partnership with the Milwaukee Common Council, the Department of City Development works each day in a variety of ways to guide development, grow opportunities and strengthen neighborhoods," commissioner Rocky Marcoux said.

The new edition mentions, among other things: a new $50 million federal grant for small business economic development in low income neighborhoods; praises Mayor Tom Barrett for creating 450 jobs at the site of a former metal foundry that need brownfields remediation; highlights an effort for affordable housing in the Metcalfe Park / Washington Park neighborhood; and, looks at new street signs for the neighborhood around the Harley-Davidson headquarters.