County Highway YY is about a 7-mile stretch of road between U.S. Highway 8 and State Highway 86.
It’s the dividing line between Price and Lincoln Counties.
On a sunny Thursday morning, it’s mostly pick-ups and semi-trucks using the highway with the occasional farm tractor riding the shoulder.
Jim Hoppe is the manager of timber and forestry for the Packaging Corporation of America Tomahawk Mill.
He says Highway YY is the main route loggers will take to bring pulpwood to the mill from forests to the west.
But it’s not available year-round because of seasonal weight restrictions, which Hoppe says is both an inconvenience and a potential safety hazard.
“It'd be the most efficient way for them to get from the west of our mill to our mill. [It] avoids that interface with small communities like Ogema and Tomahawk, where they have to go through business districts and school zones, and make everything more efficient with the transportation of those forest products,” said Hoppe.
YY will be getting an overhaul so that it will no longer need to be restricted seasonally.
It will be made wider to accommodate the logging trucks and tractors, the old pavement will be removed and replaced, and there will be better drainage and some guardrail improvements.
“After this project is complete, then it'll be open year round. That'll help relieve some of the traffic that comes into Tomahawk so we won't have the heavy trucks running through Tomahawk. They can come around the back way in the PCA,” said Roger Petrick, Price County Highway Commissioner
Price and Lincoln County Highway Departments will be coordinating on this project.
“It'll get built to a standard where it will not get spring load posted anymore, so they’ll be able to run between Highway 8 and 86, all year round,” said Lincoln County Highway Commissioner Jason Lemmer.
The State of Wisconsin awarded Lincoln County more than $3.5 million for the project. It’s expected to cover about 90% of the cost.
It’s funded through the new Agricultural Roads Improvement Program [ARIP] which Governor Tony Evers said had bi-partisan support. It passed in 2023 as part of the biennium budget.
He visited Highway YY Thursday to learn more about the project.
“One of the reasons that I came up here is to hear about what they're doing here. But most importantly, we’re going to have to look going forward, we're not going to fix all these small parts of roads that are carrying a heavy load, whether it's for timber or agricultural products,” said Evers. “I'm anticipating that will have similar need next time around. And so, we have to make sure we're successful in this, and we have good people that are working on that to make it successful.”
Road projects that want funding from ARIP need to show an agricultural or timber industry impact.
Hoppe says keeping roads in good condition for loggers has a chain effect.
“The most efficient route would keep those logging businesses profitable. It also helps the landowner receive hopefully additional funding for stumpage. And then, as for our mill, we operate locally, but compete globally, so we would want our suppliers to be as efficient as possible,” said Hoppe.
There is no timeline yet for the YY project.
Through ARIP, Rolling Acres Drive in Sugar Camp in Oneida County and several roads in Manitowish Waters in Vilas County are also receiving funding.
