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Ballweg supports Wisconsin local road funding plan

A Wisconsin State Senator says the state budget needs to include money to improve local roads serving farmers.

Joan Ballweg from Markesan chairs the Agriculture and Tourism Committee and is also on the budget-writing Joint Committee on Finance. She tells Brownfield she supports using 150 million dollars from the state’s budget surplus to fund critical agricultural road and bridge projects. “By making it difficult for our farmers to get their product to the main arteries, I think is something that has been overlooked for some time.”

Ballweg and her husband also own an equipment dealership, and she has first-hand experience with posted weight limits on a local road. “Trying to deliver a repaired tractor back to someone on a posted road and there is really no good way to unload a big piece of equipment out on a town or a county highway. We need to get back to the farm.”

And the fine? “We got it down to about eleven hundred dollars but you know, lesson learned.”

Many local Wisconsin roads have weight limits posted during the spring thaw, forcing ag suppliers and milk haulers to make multiple trips with partial loads.

Ballweg says Wisconsin has put a lot of money into major highways like Milwaukee’s zoo interchange and the Interstate system, but little aid has gone to improve the town and county roads connecting farmers to the main roads.