WAUKESHA, Wis. — Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ latest tour around the state doesn’t just have him on the road, he’s fixing them too — one pothole at a time.
His annual “Pothole Patrol” tour isn’t just about repairs. Rather, it’s a way to bring attention to investing in improvements for the local roads and highways Wisconsinites use every day.
The governor continued his tour for the fifth year in a row with a stop in Waukesha on Tuesday. According to his administration, more than 8,600 miles of roads and 2,000 bridges statewide have been repaired since 2019, thanks to historic investments.
That’s enough miles to travel from Wausau, Wisconsin to Disney World in Orlando, Florida and back three times.
“People think that potholes are potholes, but potholes cause accidents. Potholes wreck cars, you name it,” Evers said.
The governor said he wants the next budget he signs to build upon some already historic transportation investments in recent years, such as the boost in shared revenue for local communities that was achieved in 2023.
“At the end of the day, I think Republicans and Democrats are okay with fixing the damn roads, and we will continue to do that,” Evers added. “So, as we negotiate a budget, hopefully, we will be able to bring some things back, and that’s the way it always works.”
Earlier this month, Republicans on the budget-writing committee voted to strip more than 600 items from the governor’s spending proposal. Among them, several transportation-related investments, including:
- $25 million transfer from the Conservation Fund Forestry Account to the Transportation Fund to cover 50% of the governor’s proposed Agricultural Roads Improvement Program (ARIP) investment
- $16.2 million for Expressway Policing Aids
- $20 million for Transit Capital Assistance Grants
- $60 million for Local Traffic Calming Grants
“If you stop spending money on roads, you end up spending a lot more money down the road,” Waukesha Mayor Shawn Reilly explained.
Reilly said local infrastructure road grants from the state are the type of support his community needs.
“It is the state putting money into a pot that goes to the counties, and then the counties dole it out, and it’s not money that needs to be paid back,” Reilly added. “My plea is for the legislature to make sure that there is more money in it than there was last year and more money than the year before.”
In the meantime, how much money the state can share depends a lot on federal funding.
“We’ll wait and see. We are making sure that we are fighting every chance we can to make sure that things that, frankly, aren’t legal that are being done by the executive branch in Washington, D.C. — we’re going to challenge them every time we feel they are doing something wrong,” Evers said.
