Outdoors
City council committee joins drive to abandon highway project in La Crosse marsh
On the anniversary of a 1998 referendum against building a highway through marshland, a La Crosse city committee votes to end the highway proposal for good.
The city council judiciary committee supports a request to have the state eliminate the North-South corridor plan from its list of future projects.
Council president Martin Gaul believes there’s not much support any more for building new highways in the city.
The request to end the road project now goes to the full city council, but the Wisconsin DOT makes the final decision.
It was on November 3rd, 1998 that La Crosse voters backed a plan to stop city funding for the corridor project, but the DOT has continued to list the highway as a future project needed because of area traffic levels.
Committee member Jessica Olson says the city needs to defend the marsh against construction projects.
Olson says it’s fitting that Chris Kahlow, who has fought for years against the corridor plan, is now a city council member herself and can vote to discontinue the project.