S-N Editorial

If you keep up with the headlines, you're aware of a plethora of issues being discussed this session in Des Moines. From scandalous books in schools to K-12 vouchers and tax cuts, there's plenty on the table.

However, none of that pointed discourse has been directed to a growing issue poised to plague the Hawkeye State for years to come. Many of our bridges are junk, and it's high time lawmakers create some sort of targeted plan before the ailing infrastructure hits the dirt.

A recent report in the Des Moines Register highlighted the horrid condition of Iowa's bridges, 1,800 of which are classified as "basically intolerable" by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Three thousand others are rated in "serious" or "critical condition" or have components that are, and they all sit on city or county roads. That simply means the bridges on state-maintained highways are decent, but the local bridge you pass over eight times a day could be crumbling before your unknowing eyes.

This isn't something that's happening everywhere, either.

"A national study by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association identified more than 4,000 Iowa bridges in need of replacement or major repairs – the largest number and the second-highest proportion for any state," stated the Register's report. "As of January, almost 10 percent of Iowa's bridges were seriously deficient, behind only West Virginia, where 15 percent of bridges faced the same problems."

Yikes.

Of course, the folks charged with maintaining Iowa's network of bridges aren't letting them age into uselessness for the fun of it. It costs money to replace a bridge, and lots of it. Making matters worse, funding is usually prioritized to fix infrastructure that sees the highest amount of traffic. That means the bridge on your gravel road that crosses over the creek isn't getting much attention. The Register estimated the cost to fix Iowa's already deficient bridges would be more than $500 billion.

Iowa is supposed to get $432 million for bridge repair and replacement from the bipartisan infrastructure bill recently signed by President Biden. The price tag to keep up with the current pace of bridge replacement – around 40 a year, according to the Register – is around $200 million a year. The injection of funding from the federal level will cover only a bit more than two years of that need.

So what do we do? It's up to our state lawmakers, it seems. It goes without saying that we need bridges, especially in rural areas like ours with miles and miles of gravel roads and even more miles of winding creeks and other waterways. Though infrastructure funding won't get the fiery headlines and heated commentary that banning books does, it doesn't take an engineer to determine which one is more impactful on our daily lives.

Many of Iowa's failing bridges were built immediately after World War II. With all due respect to the Baby Boom generation, that was a long time ago. The time is now for the Iowa Legislature to develop a bipartisan plan that creates a sustainable model to replace ailing infrastructure like bridges in low-traffic rural areas and small communities like ours. That will require new revenue sources and increased funding allocations, but there's not really a choice here. We need roads and bridges to complete the basic functions of our society and without adequate transportation infrastructure, that ability erodes pretty quickly. We can't keep kicking the can down the road and doing the bare minimum.