Lawmakers - Think outside the lanes

Transportation funding seems to be the early leader in the race to become the biggest issue facing the Iowa Legislature in 2015.

Fresh from his re-election, Gov. Terry Branstad gave the issue a boost by suggesting 2015 is the year lawmakers should come together and forge a bipartisan plan for road funding. The governorhas not offered his own plan, hoping instead that lawmakers will come up with one.

Raising Iowa's per-gallon fuel tax, which has been static since 1989, is one option. Or Statehouse leaders could increase, tweak or eliminate a number of other taxes, fees and tax exemptions. The governor says he prefers such a 'hybrid” approach. Others say that a phased-in, 10-cent gas tax increase is the quickest way to deliver bucks for a growing backlog of road and bridge projects, and some of those bucks would come from non-residents.

Road funding is a huge, pressing issue. But we actually see it as two problems lawmakers must address.

One is the immediate need for resources to fix, improve and maintain the roads, highways and bridges Iowa has. The Iowa Department of Transportation says it needs more than $200 million in additional funds annually just to keep up. And for all its shortcomings in an era of increased fuel economy and decreased miles traveled, the gas tax likely is the best way to address immediate needs.

If lawmakers go that route, we'd like to see those dollars expressly committed to existing roads, not the construction of new highways. We'd also like lawmakers to consider a sunset for the increase, allowing Iowans to take stock of what was accomplished. Offsetting the increase with tax reductions, in particular for low-income Iowans, also should be explored.

But beyond immediate needs, lawmakers face a bigger problem. And that's how to make the state's transportation system more financially sustainable and responsive to the needs of Iowans in the 21st Century. The governor is right when he contends that, eventually, the gas tax will no longer provide adequate funding.

Lawmakers need to start thinking outside the lanes for the decades ahead.

Innovations in road construction should be considered. Public transportation and alternative transportation should be explored. Simply doing what we've always done and raising taxes repeatedly to pay for it is unacceptable in the long run.

Plugging today's potholes is a starting line, not a destination.

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