Transportation funding: It’s about trust

Last year, Iowa politicians ran away from the notion of raising the gas tax to fix our ailing highway infrastructure. This year seems different, but clearly some concerns remain among the political class about raising the gas tax. Why?

Many politicians feel raising the gas tax would be unpopular, but voters in Iowa recognize the need to fix the infrastructure. So what is causing the problem here? The answer is, quite simply, trust.

Voters' trust in politicians is at an all-time low. If politicians are serious about fixing our infrastructure, their best bet is to go about it in a way that earns our trust: Be limited in scope, be transparent, and be open to new ideas.

First, any additional money raised through a gas tax increase should go to highway infrastructure fixes and nothing else. No new bike paths, no ridiculously slow 'high speed trains” between Iowa City and Chicago, no special art projects designed to make us all feel one with the highways and no attempts, having got the extra money, to fiddle with the current Iowa DOT budget to fund more of those bike paths. Use the new money to fix the highways, nothing else.

Second, use an open process when selecting and prioritizing renovation projects for funding. The state Department of Transportation is very good at transparency (see their new website showing where all their snow plows are, for example) and could surely publish an up-to-date list of projects with appropriate details on the Web.

Finally, implement new ideas that the DOT has been testing for a number of years. For example, Brian Keierleber, the county engineer for Buchanan County, has used novel approaches to replace bridges, with assistance at times from the Iowa Highway Research Board.

That innovation and insight should be used across the state to give us the best bang for our buck.

' Wilfrid Nixon is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Iowa. Comments: wilfrid-nixon@uiowa.edu