WI road delays to prove costly

More evidence that the failure to come up with a sustainable way to pay for roads in Wisconsin is reaching the crisis stage. Lawmakers have struggled for years to come up with a sustainable plan to pay for road repair and construction. In the last session, lawmakers provided some money for roads, but much less than what is needed to even pay for existing road projects. And they decided to borrow the money, $500 million, to pay for it. Now, the DOT has announced that four major road projects in the state, will be delayed for two years. Keep in mind, most of these projects are already underway. Work will continue, but at a slower pace, which will delay their completion for at least two years, and possibly longer. A new projection by UW-Whitewater indicates that the delay of these road projects will cost taxpayers an additional $160 million due to inflation costs. So the state is spending money it doesn’t have to pay for roads, but work on those major roads will slow, meaning we’ll be driving through all those orange barrels for two more years, while spending an additional $160 million to do it. That doesn’t sound like a very good deal for drivers, or taxpayers.