Stumbled on this when bike riding. It's off a side road about 5 ft. off the ground along an Interstate (I90/94). Being an intelligent group of people I thought I'd ask here. My guess is it's some type of reflector to gage visibility distance but have never seen anything like it before.
Ahhh - Makes sense now. As I said, it's near Interstate 90/94. They are getting ready to replace a 6-lane bridge of the Interstate over the Wisconsin River at that point. Accurate survey points would definitely be required.