(Radio Iowa) – U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was in eastern Iowa Thursday, visiting two projects that have received federal grants from the infrastructure bill President Biden signed in 2021. The Eastern Iowa Airport got a $20 million grant. “The funding in this case is going to allow the team to complete a passenger terminal expansion that adds four addition passenger gates to accommodate more flights,” Buttigieg said, “improved accessibility for travelers with disabilities and more ways to fly to or from eastern Iowa with the kind of frequency that gives you more options and a good experience when you do so.”

Buttigieg, in an outdoor news conference in front of construction crews at the site, noted the Eastern Iowa Airport is located on Wright Brothers Boulevard, a reminder America ushered in the aviation age. “It’s appropriate, then, that Americans ought to have the best air travel in the world, but we’ve been slipping,” Buttigieg said. “We slipped as a country with decades of underinvestment.”

Buttigieg has been touring the country, visiting ports, bridges, bus stations and other sites that are getting infrastructure grants from the Biden Administration. Buttigieg’s second stop today is in Dubuque, at a pedestrian bridge over railroad tracks that will be a new path for walking and biking. “It’s going to make the roads safer and support jobs in that great downtown there,” Buttigieg said, “so in so many ways transportation is essential to the quality of life and economic strength and safety that we all depend on.”

Cedar Rapids Mayor Tiffany O’Donnell greats Buttigieg. (Buttigieg photo)

The Department of Transportation has so far awarded $93 million to Iowa projects being funded by the nearly two year old infrastructure law. Cities in the Cedar Rapids metro have made three unsuccessful applications to another US DOT program that awards grants to significant regional transportation projects. Cedar Rapids, Marion, Hiawatha, Robins and Linn County have been seeking federal funding for a four-lane road that would connect Interstate 380 to Highway 13. Buttigieg said his agency will work with applicants on grant requests. “Sometimes when they succeed it’s on the second, third or fourth or even more outing as they continue chiseling the project,” Buttigieg said. “…At the time I want to be transparent about just how competitive these programs are.” There were nearly 10,000 applicants for DOT RAISE grants last year and only 166 projects were approved for funding.

Buttigieg told the crowd gathered at the Eastern Iowa Airport this likely will be the busiest Memorial Day weekend for air travel since before the pandemic. Buttigieg said airlines could be grounded next month, though, if there’s no agreement to raise the federal government’s debt ceiling and federal workers in air traffic control and TSA checkpoints are furloughed. During a news conference at the airport, Buttigieg was asked about LGBTQ bills in the state legislature and he suggested Republican lawmakers have a priority problem. “Here we are in Cedar Rapids working on making life a little easier for airline passengers,” Buttigieg said, “and they’re over there in Des Moines working on making life a little harder for LGBTQ high schoolers.”

Buttigieg, who won the Iowa Democratic Party’s 2020 Caucuses, is the first openly gay candidate for president to win a state caucus or primary.

(Radio Iowa) – A University of Iowa study finds automobile insurance premiums dropped in other states after they legalized medical marijuana, suggesting that driving while high may not be as dangerous as driving drunk. Cameron Ellis, a U-I professor of finance, says they studied insurance data at the ZIP code level and found states that made medical marijuana legal between 2014 and 2019 saw premiums fall an average of 22-dollars per driver in the first year.

“In areas that had high levels of DUIs prior to medical cannabis legalization, rates fell at a much higher rate,” Ellis says, “because as bad as marijuana is for driving, alcohol is much worse, and so it’s sort of this reduction in DUIs that’s leading to the decline.” There are likely two explanations for this, he says, the first being that some of the people who were arrested for driving while impaired by alcohol simply changed their drug of choice — from alcohol to marijuana.

“But another potential one is that when you consume alcohol and marijuana together, you tend to do it at home,” Ellis says. “You don’t go smoke in a bar, you do it at home and so you’re just literally driving less while drinking, even if you’re not drinking less.” Opponents of the legalization of marijuana often argue that such a move would lead to an increase in motor vehicle accidents along with a rise in crash-related injuries and deaths. Ellis says the U-I study essentially debunks that idea, as the two drugs impair drivers in different ways.

“There’s this trope of someone’s like, ‘Oh, I’m a better driver while I’m drunk,’ but, no you’re not, but you’re really, really confident and that causes a lot of problems,” Ellis says, “whereas marijuana famously, you’re paranoid that there are cops everywhere, ‘I don’t want to get caught, I’m going to go exactly the speed limit’.” Those who are against legalizing marijuana, for recreational or medical uses, point to the harm already caused by people who drive under the influence of alcohol and argue legalizing another mind-altering chemical will lead to even more crashes, injuries and deaths.

Ellis argues that alcohol tends to make drivers more aggressive, while marijuana has a mellowing affect and makes drivers more aware of their inabilities, so they drive slower and take fewer risks. “That’s sort of the key thing of why driving while high is not nearly as dangerous as driving while drunk,” Ellis says, “though it is still very dangerous and very illegal.” The report found about 820-million dollars has been saved so far in crash-related health expenditures as a result of marijuana legalization.

Ellis says if medicinal marijuana was legalized nationally, another 320-million could be saved. The study was published by the journal Health Economics.

(Radio Iowa) – Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is expanding its focus as we head into summer to remind people not to drink and drive while using boats and ATV’s. MADD regional director, Erin Payton, says the number of incidents off the highways has increased and they want to remind people about safety. “We just want to make sure that people are realizing that even though you’re not behind the wheel of a car, you are still operating a vehicle,” she says. MADD is working with the Iowa DNR to get the word out.

She says boats and ATV’s can pose different challenges than driving a car on a highway that is laid out flat and marked. “We know that if you’ve been on an ATV on a trail, there’s a lot of blind turns, there’s no stoplights on a trail, ” Payton says. “It’s the same thing with boating, you know, you can very easily get yourself in a situation that’s out of your control, sober, and then when you add, alcohol or drug impairment — that takes away your ability for quick reflexes for smart decision making.”

Payton says they are also stressing that your boat or ATV are in good shape. “We want to make sure that you’re trained, and you have appropriate safety gear. So if you’re on a boat, you’ve got a lifejacket, if you’re on an ATV, you’ve got helmets and goggles,” she says. “And we also want to make sure that people are limiting the time on these vehicles because, you know, fatigue does play a factor into it.” Payton says ATV’s and boats are seen as ways to have fun and that’s how alcohol can get involved, along with distractions. “Just like in a car, the more people in your car are more distracting. The more people on the boat is more distracting. And with the children on ATVs too, we want to stress that single rider ATVs should just be single rider ATVs,” Payton says. “There’s always that you want to have more fun. So you want to add someone onto your ATV. But if it’s only for one person, just stick with one person.”

She says adding alcohol to the mix is the worst thing you can do. “Here’s a great statistic — a recreational boat operator with a blood alcohol level at or above .10, has a fatality rate 10 times of a sober operator. So you know, even more so almost than driving a car. Because you do that more often right? Doing voting and ATVs while not being sober is a recipe for disaster,” Payton says. Payton says they want everyone to think about these things as we head into the summer driving, boating and ATV season.