.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 12px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} tr.d0 td { background-color: #ccccff; color: black; }
When Dave Scott considers the condition we’re in as a state, he just shakes his head.

Scott, executive director of the Iowa Engineering Society, isn’t talking cholesterol, blood pressure and lack of aerobic exercise. He’s talking infrastructure.

He isn’t alone. The Iowa Department of Transportation has numbers that would startle any number cruncher, and they are causing some debate on whether to raise vehicle registration fees to make the numbers add up.

Here’s the problem: Iowa’s 113,876 miles of city, state and county roads need attention. So do many of its 24,188 bridges.

The IDOT estimates that over the next 20 years, Iowa will fall $4 billion short of having enough money to take care of its most critical road repairs.

Funding revenues have been essentially flat, yet construction costs have risen, said Dena Gray-Fisher, an IDOT spokeswoman. From 2001 to 2006, funding increased a mere 1.5 percent. The last increase in the fuel tax rates, a prime source of highway dollars, was in 1989.

As a lobbyist, Scott is aware of the numbers, but he wonders what lies ahead, given that corn-laden semitrailer trucks will be using those roads to haul their product to ethanol plants scattered across the state in small communities.

“There might be 60 ethanol plants within 30 miles of each other. And you have hundreds of truckloads going into those plants every day,” he said.

“We are taking our corn off the rails and moving it by truck to local (ethanol) plants,” Gray-Fisher said.

And all of that traffic is going over bridges, some constructed in the late 19th century, that studies show are in need of help. Iowa ranks fifth in the nation in the number of bridges.

The recently completed National Bridge Survey ranks Iowa 22nd in the nation in terms of structurally deficient or obsolete bridges.

A structurally deficient bridge needs significant maintenance attention, rehabilitation or replacement. These bridges are restricted to light vehicles, require immediate rehabilitation to remain open, or are closed.

An obsolete bridge does not meet current standards for deck geometry, such as lane width and load carrying capacity.

“We have a lot of old bridges,” Gray-Fisher said. “A lot of those county bridges are made from all different things, from timbers or steel or concrete, but they’re all old.”

According to the National Bridge Survey, 26 percent of the state’s 24,188 bridges should be repaired or replaced.

“There are huge, huge challenges,” Scott said.