Sutliff Road upgrade fast-tracked

IOWA CITY - Johnson County's secondary roads officials say the recent increase in Iowa's road use tax has created a 'happy problem” for rural road and bridge projects.

Officials estimate the tax to generate between $833,000 and $1.2 million in additional annual funds. That additional revenue will increase the county's road construction fund by about 12 percent.

With that in mind, county officials are fast-tracking upgrades to the approximately 4.3 miles of Sutliff Road between 140th Street and the Johnson-Linn county line.

Johnson County Assistant Engineer Ed Bartels said the project is temporary, but will greatly increase safety on the road.

'This is a Band-Aid, but it's a Band-Aid we hope will last 10 to 15 years,” he said Thursday at an informal meeting of the Johnson County Board of Supervisors.

'We're improving safety. We're improving the ride. We're making the road a lot better. It's a very big project, and it will serve the county very well.”

The board could take up a vote on amending the fiscal 2015 secondary roads program to include the $1.6 million Sutliff Road project as soon as next week, with county staff hoping to have work completed before RAGBRAI kicks off in mid-July and thousands of bicyclists travel along that stretch of road.

'We were going to do a section of it anyway,” Supervisor Janelle Rettig said.

'RAG­BRAI is completely secondary (roads), but with it coming up we might as well make it welcoming.”

Additional county funds from the 10-cent-per-gallon state gas tax increase that went into effect March 1 also will be used for upgrades to Wapsi Avenue in 2016 and culvert and road maintenance projects. Long-term county goals include additional bridge repair and replacement and reducing the length of future road projects.

While the added funds greatly benefit the county's $7.7 million annual construction program budget, the largest contributor remains the county's ability to bond, which makes up roughly 36 percent of spending.

'That is a giant benefit of the happy problem we ran into” on March 1, Bartels said. 'The fuel tax is not the silver bullet that is going to cure everything.”