Wisconsin spending money on roads no one is driving on yet

Will this be another road to nowhere? Lots of road work is happening in Wisconsin, much of it in Southeast Wisconsin, where Foxconn says it plans to build a big plant. The roadwork is in preparation for the opening of the Foxconn plant in Mount Pleasant. But it is not clear that plant will ever be built. Foxconn insists it will build a $10 billion plant, and employ 13,000 workers, so the state has been busy laying concrete to accommodate all the traffic the plant could generate. But the fact is, no one, apparently including Foxconn, seems to know for sure just what if anything will ever be built there. Supporters of the Foxconn deal are quick to point out that if the plant doesn’t get built, and doesn’t employ all those people, then taxpayers aren’t on the hook for $4 billion in state job creation credits. That may be true, but that doesn’t mean there is no cost to taxpayers. In fact, Wisconsin taxpayers have already spent millions of dollars on road work near the plant. Already, $106 million has been spent on road work there, and its estimated the costs will rise to $262 million. All for a plant that may never be built. Meanwhile, La Crosse Street remains filled with potholes, and the state DOT doesn’t plan to fix it until three years from now. Why should roads to a plant that may never exist take priority over crumbling roads people drive on every day? That money would be better spent on roads people drive on now, not roads they might drive on some day.