Iowa's Public Roads System
Quick Facts
December 2006
Iowa's public roads system
Investment needs
Challenges - system condition, age and needs
Challenges - system demand/utilization
Challenges - reduced revenue growth
Challenges - loss buying power
Iowa's public roads system
- Iowa’s public roads system consists of nearly 114,000 miles of highways, roads and streets.
- Iowa is 12th in the country in the number of miles of roadway and 5th in number of bridges.
- The Iowa Department of Transportation (Iowa DOT) is responsible for the 9,373-mile Primary Road System, which consists of the interstate and numbered Iowa and U.S. routes, as well as 3,975 bridges.
- The 99 counties have jurisdiction over the 90,075-mile Secondary Road System, which includes every other non-primary public road outside of the city corporate limits and farm-to-market extensions within cities with a population less than 500. The system includes 19,000 miles are paved roadways and 19,866 bridges.
- Iowa’s 947 cities have responsibility for 14,339 miles of streets within the corporate city limits when these facilities are not primary or secondary roads. Included in the Municipal Street System are 12,886 miles of paved streets and 958 bridges. (By law, funds distributed to the cities from the Road Use Tax Fund “RUTF” are contributed to the Street Construction Fund of the Cities.)
Investment needs
- Over the next 20 years, Iowa needs $27.7 billion dollars more than it is expected to receive to maintain, preserve and build new roads and bridges. Of this shortfall, $4 billion is related to the most critical projects.
- An additional $200 million annually is needed to complete these critical projects.
Challenges - System condition, age and needs
- Road conditions across Iowa’s public roads system are deteriorating, with many roads and bridges in need of major rebuilding.
- Many of Iowa’s roads and bridges are reaching or have bypassed their useful lives, having been built in the '40s, '50s and '60s, or as in the case of the county bridges, even older.
- Patching, repairing and other minor repairs are only temporary solutions. They can only last for so long before the road or bridge must be replaced, embargoed or placed out of service.
- All levels of government are struggling with existing funding levels to simply preserve and maintain these aging roadway systems.
- At the same time, there are other competing needs, including:
- added capacity on congested roadway segments;
- safety improvements, including features such as hard-surface shoulders and rumble strips;
- modernization of the system so that it meets today’s road and bridge standards; replacement of several major river border crossings;
- rebuilding of roads and bridges that have reached or exceeded their useful lives, including the 50-year-old interstate system and others that are even older; and
- corridor development needs statewide.
- Many portions of the Interstate Highway System are strained to capacity, increasing delays and air pollution, and dampening economic activity. This is not surprising since the interstate was built 50 years ago to accommodate 20 years of traffic growth.
- By 1985, half of the interstate system had reached its design life. By 1995, 90 percent of the system was 20 years or older.
- From 1999 to 2005, the miles of deficient pavements on the Primary Road System jumped from 1,968 to 2,836, a 44 percent increase.
- The number of bridges on the Primary Road System needing structural repairs has increased during the same period from 171 to 256, a 50 percent increase.
- At the local level, there are 20,824 bridges under the jurisdiction of the 99 counties and 947 cities; 23 percent of county bridges and 26 percent of municipal street bridges are structurally deficient.
System demand/utilization
- In 2005, there were 31.6 billion vehicle miles of travel (VMT) on Iowa's public roads system.
- Although the Primary Road System is only 8 percent of Iowa’s total public road mileage, approximately 61 percent of travel was carried on that system.
- The Secondary Road System accounts for 79 percent of the total public road system, with 17 percent of all VMT and 10 percent of large truck VMT carried on it.
- The Municipal Streets System carried 22 percent of all VMT and 2 percent of the large truck VMT on 13 percent of the public roads system.
- Travel VMT across Iowa has increased by 36 percent between 1990 and 2005, with large truck VMT increasing by 51 percent.
- Historically, the total VMT grew approximately 3 percent per year; however, this rate has slowed in recent years. Modest annual growth is expected in the future.
- Ninety-one percent of large truck VMT growth occurred on the Primary Road System. The Secondary Road System accounted for the remaining 9 percent. The Municipal Street System large truck travel VMT was flat.
- Freight travel is expected to increase another 50 percent by 2020.
- In 2001, more than 350 million tons of freight traveled on Iowa’s public roads system. This cargo had a value of nearly $390 billion.
Reduced revenue growth
- Federal funding for core highway programs has leveled off, which in the past had been steadily rising.
- Iowa’s Road Use Tax Fund revenue growth has lessened. The FY2001 to FY2006 average annual growth has been 1.5 percent. No growth is forecasted for FY2007.
- The last increase in fuel tax rates occurred in 1989.
- The ability for cities and counties to generate property taxes necessary to address roadway needs has been restricted.
- Local governments are seeing costs that were previously funded with other local funds, such as the General Fund, now being shifted back to their road budgets.
Loss buying power
- The purchasing power of the RUTF has declined seven out of the last nine years.
- The RUTF lost ½ billion dollars in buying power over the last three years and $260 million alone in 2006, compared to 2003 (using Iowa’s construction price index).
- Over the last 15-18 months, the unit costs for materials used in roadway and bridge construction and maintenance have increased dramatically. This is due to rising demand for materials including cement, asphalt binder and steel in the United States and in fast-developing countries such as China and India.
- The price of asphalt has also been impacted by the rising cost of crude oil and demand for other refined products, such as diesel, gasoline and heating oil.
- Comparing the average awarded contract prices by the Iowa DOT between the last quarter of CY2002 (9/1/02-12/31/02) to the second quarter of calendar year 2006 (4/1/06-6/30/06):
- roadway excavation prices have increased 66.4 percent;
- hot-mix asphalt costs are up 28 percent;
- Portland cement concrete costs have risen 12 percent;
- reinforcing steel costs are up 33 percent;
- structural steel costs have increased 18 percent; and
- structural concrete costs are up 9.5 percent.
