Your Daily Guide

🧑‍🎨 Madison Wants a ‘Luminous Shift’ on Lake Monona: “Luminous Shift,” an undulating steel sculpture by Vancouver artist Jill Anholt, was the winner among respondents to a survey of four public art proposals for the LakeWay project on Lake Monona. The selection committee that issued the survey will recommend a final design to the Madison City Council. You can check out Anholt’s full presentation of the piece with more views of the art here. [🔒WSJ, City of Madison]

🚨 Share Your Thoughts On Body Cams: A Madison City Council work group is hosting a virtual listening session Oct. 29 to hear opinions on police body-worn cameras. Madison Police Chief John Patterson said his officers should all be equipped with the cameras by the end of 2027, thanks to a $350,000 grant from the Madison Community Foundation. Register for the listening session here. [🔒WSJ, City of Madison]

🗳️ Who Will Be the Next To Enter Mayor’s Race? With Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway’s announcement that she’s ended her run for a third term for mayor, Downtown Madison Inc. President Jason Ilstrup said he is seriously considering entering the race. There are currently eight candidates already running. [Isthmus]

💄 Miss A To Open West Towne Store in November: A beauty retailer known for bargain prices will open its first Madison store in West Towne Mall next month. Miss A currently has about 100 stores nationwide, and plans to expand to 550 locations by 2030. [Cap Times]

💀 Four Libraries Celebrate Dia de Muertos: Central, Lakeview, Meadowridge, and Imagination Center libraries are celebrating the Mexican Day of the Dead (“Día de Muertos”) now through Nov. 2. Residents are invited to bring photographs and artwork to commemorate deceased loved ones, and take part in art, music, and other cultural activities. [Madison365]

🍦 A Nobel Prize AND His Own Ice Cream Flavor? Fittingly for a professor known for his work on the IceCube telescope in Antarctica, UW-Madison Professor and Nobel Prize winner Francis Halzen is getting his own flavor of ice cream from Babcock Dairy. Vote for your favorite choice through Nov. 1 – the choices include South Pole Swirl and Nobel Night Sky. [UW-Madison]

During the Oct. 21 gubernatorial debate, Democratic candidate David Crowley drew some attention when he said he was “open” to the idea of tolls on Wisconsin roads to pay for transportation costs.

Republican candidate Tom Tiffany said no, the state already had enough money on hand for road maintenance, and the Wisconsin GOP quickly pounced on Crowley’s comment. “David Crowley has never met a tax or fee hike he didn’t like,” WisGOP spokesperson Anika Rickard said in a statement.

But toll roads have been a longstanding issue in Wisconsin, with politicians on both sides of the aisle (including Tiffany himself) supporting them at one point or another. [WPR, WisPolitics]

Why Doesn’t Wisconsin Have Toll Roads?

Wisconsin is one of only 17 U.S. states that doesn’t have any toll roads whatsoever. A few other states, such as California and Oregon, only have tolls on a few bridge crossings, like the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

The reason that Wisconsin doesn’t have them? Back in the 1950s, when the federal government built interstate highways through Wisconsin, state government leaders agreed to keep the roads toll-free in exchange for federal funding. [Frommers, Wisconsin Highways]

How Does Wisconsin Pay For Roads Now?

The gas tax is the largest revenue source for the transportation fund, generating $99 million in July 2026 alone. But the state’s gas tax rate of 30.9 cents per gallon hasn’t changed in 20 years because lawmakers stopped tying it to the rate of inflation. Both Crowley and Tiffany oppose reinstating gas tax indexing.

To cover any shortfalls, the state borrows from its general fund. The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau found that Republicans under Gov. Scott Walker’s leadership used the state’s general fund to borrow $743 million for roads and transferred another $531 million.

Under Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, the state transferred another $1.1 billion from the general fund to the transportation fund. Critics say all that borrowing and transferring makes for a very unstable funding source to maintain Wisconsin roads. [Wisconsin Watch, LFB]