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County leader praises rural road program

A member of the Wisconsin Counties Association who also serves on his local town board says more towns need to take advantage of the Agricultural Road Improvement Program.

Kieth Langenhahn tells Brownfield there’s a road near his Marathon County home that gets a lot more traffic than it used to. “Forty-six years ago there were fourteen dairy herds on that road, and today, there isn’t a one, but it isn’t that that acreage along that two and a half miles of road is idle or not being used. Now, it’s all corn and soybeans and everything is being hauled down the road.”

Langenhahn says back when there were 14 herds along that road, the forage stayed home with the cows.  He says the state’s new ARIP program offers grants to improve posted roads, but many local town officials are not taking advantage of it. “It’s good that right now, there’s these ARIP grants and things like that out there, but you have to have a progressive town board going out hungry to get these grants in order to keep your road system up.”

Langenhahn says the need for fixing that first or last mile at the farms is great, and it appears both Republicans and Democrats are looking at continuing the program in the next session. “It’s a good grant system, and I guess there’s talk that the Governor is going to continue it and fund it in his next budget from what I heard yesterday.”

The ARIP program has awarded 50 million dollars so far, with another 100 million going out to towns and counties soon.

Langenhahn spoke to Brownfield during a recent Professional Dairy Producers Agricultural Community Engagement meeting.