City looking to end lingering North-South highway plan

Some unfinished business from the 1998 election is back on the agenda at La Crosse City Hall. 

A city neighborhood commission has passed a resolution, asking the Wisconsin DOT to end plans for a North-South Corridor to move traffic faster through La Crosse.  

On November 3rd of 1998, La Crosse voters backed a referendum blocking city funding on a road through the marsh, and many voters were hoping that would be the last word on the matter, but the state says there’s still a need for that highway. 

The vote against the highway plan was 11,951 to 7076, although 3 of La Crosse’s 18 districts at the time opposed the referendum question.

Mayor Tim Kabat says the expected price of the corridor plan has increased sharply over the decades, and it’s now priced at $143 million.  

The ’98 referendum specifically stopped the City of La Crosse from spending local money on a marsh road, but that was only binding for two years.