A Milwaukee business group plans to create a task force that will promote exploring tolls as a way to solve Wisconsin’s highway funding challenges, spokesmen for the group told Land Line.

At this point, the group does not have a specific proposal on the table, said Julie Granger, vice president of communications at the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce.

“We put this on really for education and to raise awareness of the issue of how to pay for or finance various transportation projects,” Granger said, adding that another reason for considering tolls was to spur discussions about alternatives to the state’s current financing structure.

Wisconsin has one of the highest fuel taxes in the nation, according to Peter Beitzel, vice president of business development with the Milwaukee group. Cars pay the state 30 cents a gallon; the diesel tax is 32 cents per gallon, according to ProMiles.

Beitzel said the Milwaukee business group was concerned about diversions of money out of the state’s transportation budget, and about extensive use of bonding in the state. The possibility of those two practices continuing were in part what prompted the Association of Commerce to form the task force.

Last year, hundreds of millions of dollars were transferred out of the state’s transportation budget to help balance the state’s general fund. The shortfall was covered in part through additional bond borrowing.

“That hopefully was a one-time action,” Beitzel said. “It concerns us.”

Much of the roadwork that is needed involves interstates around metropolitan areas, rather than those inside Wisconsin’s cities, he said, such as I-894, I-45 and I-94 going toward Madison. Another possible toll location is I-94 as it enters the state from Illinois, where it is already a toll road. Options could include high-occupancy vehicles, or car-pool lanes, or truck-only lanes. The effort is looking at tolls on new capacity only.

“We’d like to figure out a way to charge people for what they use,” Beitzel said.

The association would like to use more efficient electronic toll collection technologies, rather than occasional booths such as the ones found on Illinois tollbooths.

“People really don’t like stopping and throwing money in a container,” he said. “There’s a lot of resistance to the Illinois system here.”

‑by Mark H. Reddig, associate editor

Mark Reddig can be reached atmark_reddig@landlinemag.com.