Audit shows La Crosse marsh road should be scrapped

It is time for a reboot on the idea of a marsh road in La Crosse. The state Department of Transportation has long called for building a new north-south corridor through La Crosse. The state’s preferred route, which went to voters in a referendum, called for building that road in part through the La Crosse marsh. Voters overwhelmingly rejected that referendum back in 1998, and many assumed that was the end of the discussion. But the DOT continues to insist such a road needs to be built, and has kept a new north-south road in its plans all these years. There have been threats that if an acceptable road can’t be found, the money will go away. Fine. Take it. The money isn’t there anyway. And people here still don’t want to see that road built, at least not the one the DOT envisions. Now we have learned that the project, identified as a $67 million project initially, would now likely cost $150 million. That was revealed in an audit of the DOT, which found road planners failed to take into account the costs of inflation, causing the cost of road projects to double. The DOT should take a new La Crosse road off its list. It would be a better use of our tax dollars to fix up the pothole-filled roads we have now, and stop trying to insist we need a road we don’t want.