D-O-T Director says switching road money won’t work

Iowa’s Transportation Director says a proposal to send more road construction and maintenance money to urban areas is unrealistic. D-O-T director Mark Wandro says the plan backed by the state’s largest cities would harm rural Iowa. He cites what would happen in Polk County as the primary example.Wandro says 42 counties would lose half of the road construction and maintenance tax money they get today, and it’d be funneled to Polk County. He says common sense dictates that if you lose half your money, then you can’t survive.Wandro testified before a legislative committee last week, as did Jim Lamb, chairman of the Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce. Lamb says the plan makes sense because many counties are maintaining roads that’re hardly used. He says we have a system designed back when it was appropriate to have a county seat within a days ride by horse. He says things have changed and we don’t need the same system we had years ago.Taxes paid at the gas pump and sales taxes on vehicle purchases are deposited in the state’s “road use tax fund” which is used for roadway maintenance and highway construction.