Judge refuses to restart Highway 23 expansion project

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State officials are appealing a federal judge’s refusal to let work proceed on a long-planned expansion of Highway 23 between Plymouth and Fond du Lac.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice filed a notice of appeal Tuesday calling for reconsideration of U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Adelman’s decision in late April to not reinstate the expansion project after having brought it to a temporary halt nearly a year before. Adelman, of the District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, put a stop to work on the Highway 23 project in May 2015 after finding that the state’s traffic forecasting and population data needed clarification if they were to be cited as a justification for the $146 million project.

Asked this year to reconsider his previous decision and let the work move forward, Adelman said that state officials had once again fallen short when they tried to respond to his objections with new figures and explanations of their methods.

“For these reasons, I cannot find that (the Wisconsin Department of Transportation), when deciding whether to update its traffic forecasts in light of the updated population data, ‘conducted a reasoned evaluation of the relevant information and reached a decision that, although perhaps disputable, was not ‘arbitrary or capricious,’” Adelman wrote in his final order.

The DOJ’s challenge of Adelman’s decision will now go before the federal 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. Gov. Scott Walker released a statement Wednesday saying he supports the appeal.

“The proposed four-lane expansion project is crucial for families, communities, and businesses throughout the state,” Walker said in an official statement. “The expansion will improve mobility and provide greater access to local businesses and recreational areas, but more importantly, it will significantly improve safety for Wisconsin Highway 23 travelers between Sheboygan and Fond du Lac.”

Proponents of the expansion project have said it will make Highway 23 safer and aid in the transport of goods and passengers to and from Fond du Lac, Plymouth, Sheboygan and other nearby places. Besides connecting various cities, Highway 23 also crosses Interstate 41 in Fond du Lac County and Interstate 43 in Sheboygan County.

Critics of the project, though, questioned whether an expansion was truly needed, especially given the decrease seen in traffic counts in the years following the recent recession. Economic improvement, though, has brought a rebound in those counts in recent years.

Critics also say that some of the traffic predictions WisDOT relied on to justify other projects turned out to be overestimates.

The proposed expansion of Highway 23 would give the roadway four lanes along a 19-mile stretch running east and west between Fond du Lac and Sheboygan counties. Follow @TDR_WLJDan