On April 27, Gov. Tony Evers' plan to invest $282.9 million in Wisconsin's infrastructure won overwhelming bipartisan approval from the Legislature's Joint Committee on Finance. Approval from this committee is the last step needed for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) to deploy Wisconsin's allocation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) for infrastructure improvements throughout the state.
"We assembled a plan that invests in local roads, bridges, state highways, bike and pedestrian facilities and congestion and air quality improvement projects all over Wisconsin," Evers said. "After years of neglect, we have improved more than 1,700 miles of roads and nearly 1,300 bridges. This federal spending plan builds upon the transportation investments made in my previous two budgets so we can fix the roads and provide Wisconsinites the transportation system they need and deserve."
"I am grateful to the committee members for approving the plan and to our local partners — the towns, municipalities and counties — for helping us create a plan to ensure this federal funding is efficiently deployed to projects in communities throughout the state," WisDOT Secretary Craig Thompson said.
The BIL was signed into law on Nov. 15, 2021, and Congress appropriated funds on March 15, 2022. Starting in the fall of 2021, WisDOT worked with organizations representing towns, counties and municipalities so that projects applications could be submitted and funding could be obligated by the federal deadline of Sept. 30, 2022.
The plan to invest the BIL funding for this Federal Fiscal Year includes:
- Local roads: $83,843,000 million
- Local bridges: $60,730,200 million
- State highways: $123,566,800 million
- Bike and pedestrian facilities: $10,543,600 million
- Congestion, mitigation and air quality: $4,288,000 million
