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Feds won’t pay for pork-barrel highway project that’s based on inflated WisDOT data

Louis Weisberg, Staff writer

A federal court has halted a major highway expansion due to inflated traffic projections by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, prompting a land-use group to call for an immediate halt to all such projects in the state until they can be proven justified by traffic audits.

The U.S. Eastern District Court upheld the claim of 1000 Friends of Wisconsin that the proposed expansion of Highway 23 between Fond du Lac and Plymouth was based on overblown traffic forecasts. The ruling makes the project ineligible for federal funding.

According to the group’s executive director Steve Hiniker, actual traffic along the corridor is only one-third of WisDot’s projection. Last year, 1000 Friends studied traffic projections used to justify 11 state highway projects and found that WisDOT’s average traffic over-count was 75 percent.

“Faulty planning at (WisDOT) has likely cost taxpayers billions of dollars in unjustified projects,” Hiniker said in a statement. “This is a huge win for taxpayers.”

Critics of DOT building plans have questioned the need for a number of projects, including the proposed almost billion dollar expansion of the I-94 corridor near Miller Park in Milwaukee. Gov. Scott Walker wants to issue $1.3 billion in bonds to pay for those projects. 

Political leaders nearly always support massive road construction projects, because highway contractors provide them with generous donations. For the public, however, the projects drain funds that would otherwise help municipalities maintain their local roadways, which have become obstacle courses of potholes in recent years.

Republican lawmakers have suggested allowing municipalities to vote for new property taxes in order to maintain their infrastructures, because there’s so little money left over from the gas taxes and registration fees that Wisconsin citizens pay. That money is diverted to unneeded highway expansions, Hiniker says.

According to Hiniker, unneeded highway spending also drains the general fund, reducing the amount of state money available for everything from school funding to fire and police protection.

Hiniker believes the Highway 23 ruling could have a dramatic effect on other highway building plans in the state.

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