Some county roads aren’t being serviced

As the population in some of Iowa’s rural areas grows more scarce, counties are diverting road maintenence resources away from the “road less traveled.” The poet Robert Frost today would find it difficult to take the less traveled road in some rural areas of Iowa where counties have stopped regular maintenance on stretches of roadway which do not pass a rural residence. Dubuque County Engineer Mark Jobgen, president of the Iowa County Engineers Association, says it’s all about money. He says counties need to trim their budgets and taking care of those roads becomes less of a priority.Jobgen says a few counties even go so far as to permanently close a section of road and let property owners re-claim it.County engineers maintain about 90-thousand miles of roadway in Iowa — and while some roads are being closed, others are being built and re-surfaced as housing tracts open in rural areas near a growing city.