The simple answer is yes. Some roads do get more maintenance than others for many different reasons.
One reason is that the county roads fall under three classes; A, B & C. Class A roads are open to the general public and are maintained regularly throughout the year. Class B roads are open to the general public but see minimal maintenance and only when required. Class C roads are gated and locked. They see minimal maintenance and are open only to those who have legal right to be on the road as stated in Iowa Code.
Another reason is traffic. Roads have different levels of traffic. The more traffic you have the more wear and tear on the road. Likewise, the more traffic, the more maintenance you may see.
A third reason is the condition of the road. Roads (primarily their surfaces) are of different ages. Older surfaces are more likely to have holes and ruts or breakups than newer surfaces. It should be no surprise that older roads do get more attention than newer ones.
A fourth reason is location. Roads that are not as wide open as others, or are located in hillier terrain do not usually get the benefits of the sun to help with snow or good drainage when it rains. These roads require more work from the crews to keep them in shape and in good condition. This is not always the case but quite often a roads location alone is the cause of the majority of its problems.
There are other factors that dictate what maintenance a road gets but these four are the biggest players.
Winneshiek County is responsible for just shy of 1100 miles of road. The vast majority is located in the rural portion of the county but the county does maintain some roads in small unincorporated villages and even some of the smaller cities.
Of the county system 820 miles of the system is gavel with the remainder being hard surfaced with Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA), Portland Cement Concrete (PCC) or seal coats. There is also a few miles of actual dirt road.
The road system is maintained by 35 full time and three temporary employees who perform the plowing, blading, patching, mowing, put up signs, bridge repair, etc. The county is divided into five (5) maintenance districts each with a district shop; 1st District – Ossian, 2nd District – Fort Atkinson, 3rd District – Ridgeway, 4th District – Locust, 5th District – Freeport. The county also has a main complex located with the 5th District Shop in the Freeport area that houses the Main Shop, Bridge Crew, Sign Crew and storage yard.
The construction is handled by and engineering staff of four (4) individuals certified to handle all the testing and inspection requirements required by the State of Iowa and trained in design as outlined by the Federal Highway Administration and Iowa Department of Transportation.
The department also has two administrative personnel who assist the County Engineer with all of the reporting and documentation requirements of the department.
Winneshiek County uses the Iowa Department of Transportation’s specifications for Class A road stone for surfacing of the gravel roads in the county. Some other counties use this spec, some don’t. This specification includes a gradation of the stone (making sure there is the right mixture of different sizes of rocks), specifications for abrasion (the stones resistance to wear), Freeze-thaw (the stones resistance to the freeze-thaw cycles in our climate) and absorption (how much water will the stone absorb).
Winneshiek County is rich with limestone but no two stone sources have all the same characteristics in the stone produced and thus ranges in all of the above mentioned areas are used to test for acceptance. You may have noticed how some stone becomes mushy faster than others, or some only lasts a winter or two or maybe traffic seems to beat up some faster than others. These are all the different properties of the stone in action.
Winneshiek County tests all the quarry sources that are producing Class A stone for surfacing at the time the crushing of the stone is being done. The Iowa DOT also samples this material taking the same test we do. If the stone passes (stays within the accepted ranges) then Winneshiek County uses it for surfacing, if it does not pass, we don’t use it.
One fallacy of stone - Color does not equal quality. Color can help relate formations and the qualities of those formations but white/blue colored stone is not necessarily better than yellow or browner colored stone.
This is not a simple answer to give. The Secondary Road Fund gets money from many different sources. To start, different roads in the county have different eligibilities for different funding levels. The three road levels are Local, Farm-to-Market and Federal. Inside each of these levels are various funding sources. The major sources are as follows using Fiscal year 2005 numbers:
Local Money (from greatest to least)- Road Use Tax Fund (RUTF) 51 percent, property taxes 19 percent, Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) 9 percent, Transfer of Jurisdiction from DOT 2.7 percent, Highway Bridge Replacement and Rehabilitation Program (HBRRP) 0.5 percent, misc. permits and sale of materials and equipment 0.2 percent.
This is not all the funds that can appear as local funds. NRCS projects or RISE projects also funnel though as local funds. Also it should be noted that the HBRRP funds can fluctuate drastically as local funds. In the FY 2005 only $35,000 came into the budget, in other years as much as $800,000 has been passed through.
Farm-to-Market Money (FM) – For all practical purposes all of the money in the Farm-to-Market fund comes from the Road Use Tax Fund. This money is used for construction only and only roads with FM status are eligible for its use.
Federal Money – Federal money is broken into two main sources although there are other sources that are used rarely such as FEMA for storm damage. The two sources used are Surface Transportation Program (STP) and Highway Bridge Replacement and Rehabilitation Program (HBRRP). STP funds can only be spent on roads that have Federal Aid (FA) status. These are generally, not always, the higher traffic roads such as the Locust Rd. HBRRP funds are specific to bridges regardless of the road status. The only issues that the bridge needs for HBRRP funds is to rate low enough in sufficiency and have at traffic count of 25 vehicles per day. The road status will dictate how the bridge money funnels through the budgets, local or FM.
Keep in mind this is the major monies that come into the road system for Winneshiek County. NRCS, RISE, TSF, CSTEP, FEMA, State Bridge Funds and other road related funds do show up every now and again but for all practical purposes are not available often enough to be counted on.
Iowa Code requires that each county must appoint a specific individual who is licensed by the State of Iowa as a Professional Engineer.
A law was enacted in 1913 when the Iowa Highway Commission (now the Iowa Department of Transportation) was reorganized that stated a county had the option of hiring an engineer to oversee the roads and bridges of the county if it chose to do so. In 1923 the laws were rewritten to state that a county must hire a professional engineer to oversee the roads and bridges of the county and that law is still in effect today.
Whether the county has a registered Professional Engineer on staff, shares one with another county or hires a consultant, all county construction plans must bear the seal of a Professional Engineer to ensure that they were created following the design standards of the time. Most counties employ a Professional Engineer, there are a counties that share a Professional Engineer.
