Deputies Seeing Issues Surrounding Highway 23 Closure

Fond du Lac County Sheriff’s Captain Ryan Waldschmidt wants to remind drivers that Highway 23 between Fond du Lac and Rosendale is completely closed. Deputies have been having issues already with cars dodging barricades and trying to take the highway, where the drivers end up encountering holes in the road and construction crews. 

Waldschmidt says the highway is closed to expedite the process, but “for every minute that a construction worker has to take to stop what they’re doing, get off their equipment, and go talk to these people to get them turned around and off of the highway and around the construction is another minute that the construction project comes to a halt, and that leads to significant time delays for the project.”

The other major issue deputies are seeing is people going highway speeds on nearby town roads. Waldschmidt tells us smaller vehicles can take those side roads, but you have to remember it’s not a highway, “it’s a town road, it’s built to town road standards. It’s curvy, it doesn’t have wide shoulders, it doesn’t have wide lanes – so it’s not anywhere near as nice of a highway as Highway 23 is. So when people use that route, they just need to use extra caution, take your time, obey the speed limit, and travel safely along that route to get from point A to point B.”

The side roads also have a ten-ton limit, which means larger vehicles should avoid using them. 

The official detour is to take Interstate 41 north to Highway 26 – and then return south. Waldschmidt admits “that it’s a significant detour route, I get that it’s a significant addition to somebody’s time and miles they put on their vehicles to use that detour route, but that’s the route that we really need semi and truck traffic to use because that’s the safest route that keeps you on interstate and state highway systems.”