Either toll roads and/or increased gas tax.

If you make a house out of sticks and it either washes away or falls apart EVERY year what do you do?
1. Pretend the way you are doing things is correct (because thats the way you always did) and think of a better way to fund your continuous project.
Or.
2. Give in and realize that you've failed, have been failing, and will fail again if you dont change your ways. Build it out of stronger materials that last 10 times longer even if it cost more.
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Why do we continuously pick option 1? Oh ya.... because option 1 will provide more jobs.. which means more money spent which means more taxes will be paid. Its a win/win/win scenario for the state/govt/city.
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Why do we have to vote for people to make these choices? Why cant we vote on individual things as individuals? There is no reason in this day and age that this couldnt be setup online.

Let me modify my last remark. It should be free for them to leave!!

Charge all Illinois plated vehicles $10 to enter and $20 to leave!

To have toll roads in Wisconsin, Wisconsin would need the approval of the Federal Government. It would also require repayment of some of the Federal funds used in the construction of the roads.

Illinois leased all the tollroads and I can not find out where I read "china"... dont have time to research again right now.. But my weird and twisted way of thinking isnt far from truth. :) Do some research yourself.

hongkongexpat, I am not sure if Illinois tollways are owned by China, but I do know the Toll Road across northern Indiana is operated by a South African company and it has been a huge success, saving the taxpayers millions of dollars, so I guess it is possible China 'owns' the roads in Illinois in some capacity. As far as paying for the roads there are some interesting ideas out there, taxing new business really defeats the purpose of why a business would move here and here is a news flash corporations and business do not pay taxes they pass those costs on to the customer. I am not against toll roads would just take some getting use to. It would be nice to get an idea where we get more from out of state travelers like Illinois does with their toll roads. The gas tax is one route, not a great one but possible. Sigma brought up a good point about waste there is definitely plenty of that, perhaps we could focus on cleaning that up and see what the true shortfall is at that point.

I have said it before....toll roads....user pays.
Every state from Illinois to Massachusetts has toll highways and they seem to me to be in better shape than ours.

Sigma -

You have got to be either the biggest doofus blogger I've ever read, or the most ignorant thinker around. Your posts make no sense at all. China owns Illinois roads? Wow, that's fringe! So in your weird twisted way of thinking, the money I spend in mainland China (where I frequent) goes to the roads like Michigan Ave or Rush Street in Chicago? Or perhaps the tolls that drivers pay on the Jane Addams helps reduce our federal Chinese debt? You seriously need to stop drinking and typing. It is very dangerous for the brain in your butt.

Toll roads. Let ALL who use them pay towards upkeep and replacement.
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Our annual license plate fee is already too high.
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Keep DOT revenues safe from being used by other departments whose so-called leaders cannot balance their budgets! [ Replace those folks who do not know how to get the balancing done! ]
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C'mon, JohnWicket: Just because YOU choose a life style which dictates commuting does not make you . . . or any other commuter "abused".

So we should sell the roads to China like Illinois did? Brilliant!

Open road tolling .. like Illinois has..

Create a tax for people who buy fuel economy cars, car pool, and try to drive less often because that is apparently the problem. We are using less gas and driving less often which means less money coming in to create more highways and roads that we aren't using often enough. We are going to pay one way or another so let's all buy big SUVs. Maybe it will bring GM back.

I find it remarkable how much uproar there is over raising fuel taxes by a few cents per gallon, v.s. Big Oil doing the same because, well, it's Tuesday, and they can get away with it.

I rather like how Wisconsin can actually afford to pay for road projects, and how most roads are actually maintained properly here. Go to Michigan sometime if you want an idea of what happens when you don't fund the roads. They take paved main roads and turn them back to gravel because they can't afford to repair the pavement.

There's nothing wrong with reverting the fuel taxes back to the inflation-indexed rates of before. People will complain a lot, but life will go on. What will hurt are the unexpected visits to the mechanic because the rough roads wrecked your suspension.

What IS wrong is allowing the highway funds to get raided whenever other parts of government fail to budget properly, and need a hit.

Perhaps all the new businesses that are being created in(attracted to) our state could start paying special road-development taxes to support the vehicles they are operating on our newly - developed highway network. After all many of them are getting free land and TIF breaks that ordinary citizens have never gotten. Asking citizen commuters to support business needs through gas taxes is grossly unfair because we are already supporting those firms with city and county taxes. What is fair to the over-taxed (abused) citizen?

We have the highest gas tax now. How about toll roads.

Do a little research into prevailing wage laws and you will see how taxpayers are seriously screwed when it comes to public construction projects......Get rid of those laws and you would see an instant savings in tax dollars spent.

How about they just use the money we're already paying for road work? Are we really supposed to believe that the $988 million the state collected on motor fuel tax alone in 2011 wasn't enough to fund all the road work? Once you add in all the other transportation fees paid (licensing, registration, etc), the DOT took in $3.4 billion in taxes and fees in 2011. PLUS, THEY GET FEDERAL HIGHWAY FUNDING. If they can't run the DOT with $3.4 billion a year plus what they're getting in federal funding, then I think the solution is to get rid of the people making spending decisions and stop spending money from the transportation fund on other things, not to raise taxes.

http://www.dot.state.wi.us/about/tfp/doc...

I say we outsource the roadwork...its obvious the people that have been building them royally suck at it. We need to hire strictly NON-union workers. The current companies take 3 times longer than needed, cost way too much, and dont last long at all. Do they purposely build roads today with job security built in?
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How should we pay for it? The question should be... where is the money we are paying for it going? Whos monitoring the spending? whos auditing it on the quality side to see if we are getting what we pay for? There is obviously no one in Janesville checking the work that they pay for on the roads I cant imagine the state being any different.
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Here we are again trying to find a solution to a problem that we havnt even figured out yet, or people dont even know is a problem...."lets just throw more money at it". And we wonder why we are in debt?