Dept. of Transportation: Counties receive aid to maintain forest roads

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) announced today that $320,600 in state funds will help improve more than 900 miles of public roads throughout Wisconsin’s county forests.

WisDOT administers the state’s County Forest Road Aid program, which assists 24 Wisconsin counties that maintain and improve public roads in county forests. For the 2021 fiscal year, Marinette County, with 234 miles of eligible county forest roads, will receive the largest payment of more than $82,000.

“Local roads are the first and last mile of many trips, and they are essential for our local economies, businesses, and communities,” Governor Evers. “Ensuring every corner of our state has strong infrastructure helps us connect the dots by helping workers, products, and visitors get from point A to point B, and I am pleased that we have increased the funding available for counties to fix these forest roads.”

“County forests are an asset to Wisconsin, and maintaining good access to these lands improves tourism, industry and agriculture,” WisDOT Secretary-designee Craig Thompson said. “WisDOT is pleased to work with our county partners to make good investments in our local transportation infrastructure.”

To qualify for the state funding, roads must be located within county forests and they cannot be town roads, or county or state highways. The roads must meet minimum design standards of a 16-foot surface width and a 20-foot roadway width and be open and used for travel.

County Forest Road Aids are separate from the larger General Transportation Aids (GTA) program. GTA distributes funding to local governments from state-collected transportation revenues (fuel taxes and vehicle registration fees), helping offset the cost of county and municipal road construction, maintenance, traffic and other transportation-related costs.

Counties and the amount of County Forest Road Aids being distributed are listed below: