Transportation funding uncertainty

Denny Sejkora's small fleet of trucks, which supports his family farm in Linn County, averages 65,000 miles a year hauling grains to market.

Seven rigs times thousands of miles means that an increase in the gas tax would add up.

But Sejkora supports a hike because his crew sees firsthand the creeping decline of Iowa's bridges and roads.

'When you get away from here, there's a lot more closed roads and low-tonnage bridges. Places where bridges have deteriorated, they took it out and didn't replace the bridge,” Sejkora said of leaving a fairly well-kept Linn County. 'You have to turn around and go some other way.”

Detours delay deliveries and rack up extra miles, not to mention added wear and tear to the trucks, he said.

Farming and trucking are just two business sectors watching anxiously as lawmakers at the state and federal level struggle to address transportation needs.

Some, such as Sejkora, said increasing the gas tax, which is the primary source for road work, is the fairest way to attack more than $200 million in critical transportation needs in Iowa, but lawmakers have lacked the political will to raise it.

In Iowa, the gas tax has remained 20 to 21 cents a gallon for 25 years. Federally, more fuel-efficient vehicles are depleting the Federal Highway Trust Fund, which contributes about half of Iowa's road construction budget. That fund is expected to dry up in August.

The current two-year transportation plan - Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century, or MAP-21 - will expire Sept. 30. Unless Congress acts to approve a new plan or extends the current one, federal spending for transportation will be shut off.

Officials with the Iowa Department of Transportation expect some sort of legislation to get passed, but they already are planning to delay new projects beginning in July.

'We are assuming this is going to get fixed because we've never gone this far before,” said Cathy Cutler, a planner with the DOT district office in Cedar Rapids.

Meanwhile, roads in Iowa - where 89 percent of the work force drives to work - are a linchpin of the economy.

A May report from the National Transportation Research Group estimated that 12 percent of Iowa's roads are in poor condition, costing each Iowa motorist an extra $422 a year for repairs and operating expenses.

The same report found that 38 percent of Iowa's major urban highways are congested, costing Americans $121 billion a year in wasted time and fuel costs.

According to data from the Federal Highway Administration, Iowa has the second most structurally deficient bridges - 1 in every 4 - in the nation.

Needs can be seen all around Eastern Iowa, where projects can sit unfunded for years.

For example, a rehab project to address the age of the pavement, deterioration of joints and faulting of State Route 13 from Marion to Central City has been on the priority list for about five years, Cutler said.

In Johnson County, a surface overlay of Highway 6 from the western county line to Highway 1 is the top local priority. So far, this project is not scheduled, Cutler said.

Meanwhile, every day, there are 48,297 vehicles traveling over 40 structurally deficient bridges in Johnson County, and 30,744 motorists crossing 28 similarly classified bridges in Linn County, according to the federal bridge inventory.

The longer a project is delayed, the worse the condition gets and the more it costs to fix.

'The risk is you ultimately keep falling behind,” said Linda Langston, a Linn County Supervisor and president of the National Association of Counties. 'The whole thing moves back, and needs intensify. You defer maintenance another year. You push the bridge back another year. It's a terrible way to run a system.”

Programs such as Cedar Rapids' Paving for Progress, which is funded by a voter-approved local option sales tax, are helping with local road work. Iowa City also is discussing a local option sales tax, some of which would go to roads.

But state and federally funded roads are a bigger piece of the transportation system, and commerce and growth are caught in the middle.

Business leaders are keenly aware of the issues and urging lawmakers to address needs.

Nancy Quellhorst, president of the Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce, said the group doesn't know what the cost would be if a transportation plan isn't approved before it expires. She called it a critical need and said businesses already are being affected.

'Any retail establishment who pays more for whatever product they sell, to people in the transportation business to the construction industry, (are affected),” she said. 'Procuring goods at a reasonable rate is predicated on having it shipped to you at a reasonable rate.”

Joseph Jones, senior vice president of government relations and public policy for the Greater Des Moines Partnership, an economic development group that represents 21 chambers of commerce in central Iowa, serves on the Iowa Chamber Alliance. Transportation is a 'hallmark” issue in the Alliance's lobbying efforts, he said.

'I think it is a constant concern,” Jones said. 'It is not always in the limelight. MPOs (Metropolitan planning organizations) and a lot of our city planners are constantly talking about safety and transportation.

'It's not just about the movement of goods and services, but how do our citizens get to work, how do our kids get to school?”

Thousands in the work force also have a stake. In Iowa, thousands of jobs are directly connected to transportation work, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

'3,450 highway maintenance workers

'2,880 civil engineers and civil engineer technicians

'760 architectural and civil drafters

'230 surveying and mapping technicians

'600 paving, surfacing and tamping equipment operators

'4,970 operating engineers

'And thousands of construction laborers, and more than 46,000 heavy- and light-truck drivers.

'We are very concerned. The operative word is uncertainty,” said Jim Piazza Jr., director of government and policy relations for the Iowa Heavy Highway Contractors Association.

Piazza said the reliance on short-term budget fixes rather than a longer-term plan hurts.

Short-term solutions mean short-term projects that address the most pressing needs, such as threats to safety, while the gap between funding and overall needs keeps growing, he said.

Without a longer-term plan, it halts big-picture projects that support economic development and challenges confidence within the construction industry, which affects work force retention and investment in equipment, he said.

'Our state is going to be faced with some very serious decisions if we don't see an increase in funding,” he said.

The uncertainty puts a strain on economic development and planning.

Iowa City long has planned to connect Taft Avenue on the far east side of town from Interstate 80 to an industrial park on the southeast side of town. It would support a cluster of large employers on that side of town, such as Procter & Gamble, who are served by trucks that must navigate through residential areas.

Another Corridor vision on the south edge of town likely would spur residential development and some commercial work - but only a small portion of that road, McCollister Boulevard, has been complete.

Funding uncertainty has kept the city cautious in its planning.

'It has a chilling effect on creating new infrastructure,” said Jeff Davidson, Iowa City's economic development administrator. 'You know you are going to have to pay for maintenance.”

The Iowa DOT and some municipalities have taken an approach to plan based on the continuation of current funding levels.

This leap of faith allows projects and planning to move forward at full speed, but the risk is some projects could come to a screeching halt should a funding plan not get passed.

For example, in Eastern Iowa, the DOT has scheduled a nearly $100 million project to replace a bridge at the Interstate 80 and 380 interchange in fiscal 2018-2019.

There's millions of dollars in patching, bridge deck work, grading and paving on Interstate 380 slated in each of the next five years. And there's a $100 million bypass plan for Iowa 30 around Lisbon and Mount Vernon.

All these are being scheduled but depend on federal money that as of yet does not exist.

'We are assuming we will receive the current funding levels and fully program that money for the full five years (of the state's transportation plan) to minimize impacts we've had in the past,” said Stuart Anderson, Iowa DOT director of intermodal transportation. 'The risk with that is we have a situation if we don't come up with an answer to short-term issues with the Highway Trust Fund, we will have to cut more projects.”

Linn County Supervisor Langston said any project that has some connection to federal or state funding could be put on hold.

'It's a miserable way to do planning,” she said.