Paul Trombino, director of the Iowa Department of Transportation, has told audiences for months that Iowa can’t afford to maintain every road now in the system and needs to set priorities on which pavement to keep in the future.  

But when he made similar comments last week to an Urban Land Institute Iowa audience, he caused a bit of a stir online.

After the nonprofit group Strong Towns posted a blog entry expressing shock at Trombino’s candor, the Atlantic’s CityLab blog followed suit. Those two blogs were picked up elsewhere.

Trombino appeared last week in Des Moines with Charles Marohn, a fellow engineer and urban thinker from the nonprofit Strong Towns. Marohn doesn’t think trying to solve transportation problems with wide roads is the best idea. Morano’s organization supports financially stable cities whose roads are friendly to walkers and bicyclists first, and the vehicles second.

The two hadn’t met, and they found each other’s comments refreshing. Marohn was particularly impressed with Trombino’s prediction that Iowa’s road system — one of the largest in the nation, by some measures — will shrink because Iowans won’t want to pay to maintain it all. 

“I said the numbers before. 114,000 lane miles, 25,000 bridges, 4,000 miles of rail,” Trombino said. “I said this a lot in my conversation when we were talking about fuel tax increases. It’s not affordable. Nobody’s going to pay. … The reality is, the system is going to shrink.”

This isn’t your typical engineer talk.

“This is a game-changing acknowledgement that every state DOT director should be putting into the public realm,” Marohn wrote on his blog.

“Most DOT directors understand that we’ve overbuilt, that there will never be the money to maintain everything they are asked to maintain. (I would question the ones who don’t, their adherence to dogmatic politics or their competence.),” Marohn wrote. “I’ve not heard another DOT chief admit this problem publicly. They need to.”

He added: “In 2009, Iowa had 114,347 highway miles. That is one mile for every 27 people. By comparison, Texas — the DOT I’ve long thought was the most hopelessly overcommitted financially — has 87 people per mile. California is 226. So perhaps it is fitting that this acknowledgement first comes from Iowa.”

The CityLab blog noted that while vehicle miles traveled fall in Iowa, the state continues to expand its road network even as the condition of the system deteriorate.
 

Lawmakers approved a fuel-tax increase this year that will largely be used to repair key stretches.

The debate over how Iowa should build highways and city streets has been a hot one lately as young professionals push hard for better mass transit, and for communities that are more friendly to walkers and bicyclists.

Des Moines is launching a pilot project on “complete streets,” the Des Moines Area Metropolitan Planning Organization has been encouraging the debate, and Urban Land Institute Iowa has as well. 

Read More:

Windsor Heights adopts ‘complete streets’

Marohn: Wide roads hurt communities

Smart Growth America: Des Moines ranks low in walking, biking