SCOTT McFETRIDGE
Associated Press
MILO, Iowa (AP) - Something surprising is happening to the transportation systems in Iowa and other states: They are getting smaller as governments quietly give up on maintaining many rural roads and bridges to spend on bigger, more essential projects in busier areas.
The pattern is provoking fears that the trade-off could make it even harder to eke out a living in many places where opportunity is already limited.
In Warren County, just south of Des Moines, officials have closed 20 bridges over small streams, with more likely to come. Now farmers have to drive miles out of their way to reach their fields, and once-simple errands have become cross-country trips.
The county’s engineer, David Carroll, says local governments need to prioritize when it comes to maintaining projects that were built decades ago.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press.