{"id":4140,"date":"2013-11-05T12:29:01","date_gmt":"2013-11-05T18:29:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=4140"},"modified":"2013-11-05T12:29:01","modified_gmt":"2013-11-05T18:29:01","slug":"the-new-proposal-to-finish-us-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2013\/11\/the-new-proposal-to-finish-us-20\/","title":{"rendered":"The new proposal to finish US 20"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>State Sen. Rick Bertrand of Sioux City <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desmoinesregister.com\/article\/20131103\/OPINION01\/311030033\/Iowa-View-Governor-let-s-invest-finishing-Highway-20\">wants the state to dip into its surplus<\/a>, and spend $90 million a year for four years to four-lane US 20 between Moville and Early.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/siouxcityjournal.com\/news\/local\/sioux-city-senator-wants-financial-push-for-highway-expansion\/article_bef53d48-84f4-5ee0-bfb7-4ed11dbeec7d.html\">Gov. Branstad is &#8220;supportive&#8221; of finishing 20<\/a>, but at the same time he won&#8217;t throw his weight behind <em>either<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.desmoinesregister.com\/article\/20131104\/NEWS10\/311040101\/1056\/NEWS05\"> support of that specific proposal<\/a> <em>or<\/em> raising the gas tax.<\/p>\n<p>So <em>how<\/em>, then, is this significant construction project supposed to happen?<\/p>\n<p>Between 2003 and 2008 <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.tstc.org\/2008\/07\/10\/state-construction-programs-reeling-from-high-steel-and-asphalt-prices\/\">the cost of asphalt doubled and the cost of steel tripled<\/a> \u2014 and the gas tax has stayed a flat rate, regardless of the simultaneous doubling of gas prices. The West Virginia DOT has a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.transportation.wv.gov\/highways\/contractadmin\/Lettings\/Pages\/FuelandAsphaltPrices.aspx\">10-year listing of asphalt and cement prices<\/a> for its project lettings, which offers a bigger picture. Cement has stayed somewhat steady, which is a positive because most new roadways in Iowa start as concrete.<\/p>\n<p>Without one of two things happening \u2014 raising the gas tax or dipping into the surplus \u2014 it&#8217;s hard to see how US 20 is finished as four lanes across the state in any sort of decent time frame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>State Sen. Rick Bertrand of Sioux City wants the state to dip into its surplus, and spend $90 million a year for four years to four-lane US 20 between Moville and Early. Gov. Branstad is &#8220;supportive&#8221; of finishing 20, but &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2013\/11\/the-new-proposal-to-finish-us-20\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[8,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-construction","category-highway-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4141,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4140\/revisions\/4141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}