Road Destruction-Construction Update

Across the Fence #354

It’s been four months since I wrote a eulogy to the destruction of Sherpe Road and the farmland along Highway 14 between Westby and Viroqua. That column generated more comments than any story I’ve ever written. I had e-mails, phone calls, and I’m stilling getting people commenting about it when I meet someone on the street. I’d say that 99% of those people think the four-lane highway is a waste of money, especially during this time when we hear that the state is practically broke.

Education budgets are stripped to the bare bones and yet we throw money into projects like this road that local residents say isn’t needed. Except for two people who were in favor of the road, over two hundred people told me it was a total waste of money and destruction of land. One woman told me that during one of the listening sessions, where no one was listening, she asked if anyone had considered all the lost tax base from destroyed farms. The state officials admitted they hadn’t considered that problem.

I have to tell you what Trygve Thompson, a long time friend and neighbor, told me. I have his permission to relate his story.

I was born on the farm that was located just north of the Thompson farm. Our farm was located behind what is now Frontier Ag and Turf, the John Deere dealer along Highway 14. I grew up with Trygve and Joel Thompson and we often walked across the fields, and crossed the fences between our farms, to play with each other.

When the new highway was constructed back in the 1950’s, they put a tunnel under Highway 14, so Thompson’s cows could safely cross to the other side of the highway. They have around 180 acres on the west side of the road and all the buildings and 50 more acres on the east side of the road. It was fun for us kids to use the tunnel under the highway and it was a great place to play, catch frogs, and have frog races.

The new highway will eliminate that tunnel. Granted, Trygve no longer milks cows so they don’t need it for the cows to reach the other side. The problem is that the state will not put an access road across the four lanes, so farm machinery can cross to the other side. Now he’ll have to travel north from his driveway, on the two lanes to Frontier, where he can cross the road to his fields. To get back to his farm buildings, he’ll have to enter at the Frontier access and travel down the other two lanes, heading south, until he reaches the Rogers farm where he can cross the road and head back north to reach his driveway. That will be some dangerous travel with large, slow machinery.

Like everything else about this road construction, no one cares about things like this unless you’re the one affected by it. Time will tell how that access problem works out, but don’t blame Trygve if you get behind slow-moving machinery trying to do farm work. Point a finger toward the powers-to-be in Madison, who don’t seem to care about the rural disruptions and problems they create.

Many people, including readers in Iowa and Minnesota, have asked me how the road is coming along. The new lanes on the west side are almost completed. Then traffic will begin traveling on the new road and they’ll tear up the existing two lanes and redo them. Several people have commented about how empty the landscape looks now. I don’t think there’s a bush or tree left along the new highway, and the bike path that runs alongside the road will certainly be exposed.

Speaking of exposed, I’ve been suggesting that we invite the naked bike racers from Madison to come north to God’s Country and initiate the new trail when it opens. I understand they had 40-50 bikers show up for this year’s race/tour in Madison. I can guarantee that you’ll have a great view of the entire race from Westby to Viroqua, because there isn’t a bush or tree to obstruct your view. Maybe even some locals would like to join them, although I will respectfully decline any invitation. It’s tough enough biking with padded bike shorts, let alone, au naturel.

Now before you start getting together a party to tar and feather me, and run me out of town, we’ve got to have a little tongue-in-cheek humor to go along with this new highway and multi-use trail!

As I’ve said so many times in this column, times change and we can’t go back. According to the vast majority of people around here, this un-needed, wasteful spending, destructive, four-lane highway, is another of those changes we could have done without. But it’s here now and we’ll have to learn to live with it. I doubt if I’ll ever see Sherpe Road lined with large trees and brush, and full of wildlife again, in my lifetime. But I hope future generations will find it as beautiful as it was, before it was all destroyed this summer.

One last comment, if you get behind some slow-moving farm machinery near the John Deere dealer, don’t blame the farmers, they’re just trying to do their job.

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