(Radio Iowa) — A new report says Iowa’s infrastructure is in urgent need of investment. Paul Skoutelas, president and C-E-O of the American Public Transportation Association, says a study of things like roads, bridges and airports nationwide gives our public transit systems a letter grade of D-minus.  “It’s reflective of the existing condition of our bus fleets and that certainly applies in Iowa, the stations, the facilities in general, and says that we need to make a larger investment,” Skoutelas says.

The study identifies a 232-billion dollar backlog in needed infrastructure investment nationwide, but did not provide a specific figure for Iowa. Skoutelas says some Iowa communities with bus systems haven’t upgraded them in many years, and he singles out Dubuque, Sioux City and Cedar Rapids. Skoutelas says, “As it relates to Iowa, we’re talking about investments to replace their bus fleets, to replace their stations, their facilities that help provide the service every day to their customers.”

While many buses operate on diesel, he says advances with ground transportation, including light rail, are much less reliant on fossil fuels. “We’ve got a big movement going on in the country towards electricification,” Skoutelas says. “More and more cities are going to alternate propulsion systems, whether it’s compressed natural gas and in many cases now, electricification, that takes new investment to make that happen and the infrastructure to support that.”

This spring’s flooding caused significant damage to roads and bridges in Iowa, especially in the southwest. Skoutelas says it’s clear the infrastructure needs to have resiliency built-in in order to weather Mother Nature’s extremes. “That also points to the need to be able to provide emergency-related services,” Skoutelas says. “We’ve had a number of cities and transit agencies that have been called into service in these kinds of situations to do evacuations to make sure people are placed out of harm’s way.”

The report claims an investment in infrastructure brings a four-to-one return in economic activity over the next 20 years.

(Radio Iowa) — The state Transportation Commission has approved the latest draft of its five-year Transportation Improvement Program. D-O-T spokesman Stuart Anderson says they expect to have around three-point-five BILLION dollars available — which is similar to past years.  “It stays relatively stable from year-to-year. The last significant change in the amount of money that is available for the commission to spend on the state highway system increased back in 2015 when the legislature passed the fuel tax increase And that provided about 100 million dollars a year in additional revenue,” Anderson says.

Some projects are completed and drop out of the plan every year and Anderson says new projects are then added to the fifth year. That includes several corridor projects this year — including the final stretch of two-lane expansion of Highway 61 in southwest Iowa. “A project to build a bypass of Missouri Valley on U-S 30, which would also include not only a bypass, but includes some levee work in the Missouri Valley area, because the bypass would act as a levee. Also allowed them to add the replacement of the Iowa 9 Mississippi River bridge crossing up in Lansing — which would be a joint project with the state of Wisconsin,” Anderson says.

And there is a project planned for Highway 63. “A northwest bypass of the city of Oskaloosa,” according to Anderson, “to try to get some of the semi traffic out of the central business district of the city.” The plan also includes interstate projects that include I-29 reconstruction in Sioux City, six-lane improvements on I-35 in Polk and Story Counties, the I-74 Mississippi River Bridge replacement in Bettendorf, the I-80/380 Interchange reconstruction near Iowa City, six-lane improvements on I-80 in Johnson and Cedar Counties, I-380 in Hiawatha for the Tower Terrace Interchange, and the I-80/I-29 system in Council Bluffs. Millions of dollars in damage was done to road this year by flooding — but Anderson says that is not something that’s included in this plan. “Roads that have been impacted by flooding are typically addressed outside of the five-year program. And those are typically covered with federal emergency relief funding,” Anderson explains.

You can see the entire plan online. “It is available on the Iowa D-O-T website. So, it is available for public review and comment. And all comments will be shared with the commission, and at their meeting June 11th, they will take action on the final five-year program,” Anderson says. A majority of the fund for the highway program comes from the federal government.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa City-based testing company ACT intends to outsource more than 100 jobs to a Colorado company. ACT says 115 full-time positions and 40 temporary positions will be eliminated locally. The transition of the work to Startek will begin Aug. 1 and be finished in November. Startek is based in Greenwood Village, Colorado.

ACT says Startek can provide “a level of service that is no longer possible for a non-specialized company” such as ACT. ACT also says employees who do not find other positions with the company will receive severance packages.

The Creston Police Department reports two people were arrested Wednesday evening on drug charges. 25-year old Marcus Parkhurst and 25-year old Brittanee Short, both of Creston, were taken into custody at around 6:10-p.m. in an apartment located in the 300 block of W. Lucas Street. They were both charged with Possession of a Controlled Substance/1st offense, cited and released on a Promise to Appear in court.

Authorities said also, a woman reported that sometime between 10-and 10:30-a.m. Wednesday, someone entered her vehicle while it was parked in the 300 block of W. Adams Street. Taken from inside the vehicle, was a purse that contained keys, credit cards, ID and cash. The loss was estimated at $200.

The National Transportation Safety Board has scheduled an open public board meeting for 8:30-a.m. Central Time June 18th in Washington, D.C., to determine the probable cause of the fatal, Dec. 12, 2017, Oakland, Iowa, school bus fire. The crash occurred when 74-year old school bus driver Donald Hendricks turned from a rural gravel road onto a residential driveway for student pickup. After 16-year old Megan Klindt boarded the bus, Hendricks reversed out of the driveway and backed across the road continuing until the bus’s rear wheels ran off the road. The bus came to rest with its rear half in a 3-foot-deep ditch next to the road.

NTSB investigation photos of Oakland School Bus fire

While Hendrick attempted to drive the bus out of the ditch, a fire began in the engine compartment and spread throughout the school bus. Both Hendricks and Klindt died, when they did could not escape the burning bus. The meeting will be lived-streamed, and a public docket for this investigation is available from the NTSB website at https://go.usa.gov/xmVnE

For more information, including the preliminary incident report, go to: https://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Pages/2019-HWY18MH003-BMG.aspx

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Officials think a mountain lion seen in Des Moines likely has left town. The animal was spotted on security video last week west of downtown and on the city’s south side, not far from the airport. Des Moines police received two calls Wednesday morning from people who think they saw it, too, but the reports haven’t been confirmed.

Alex Murphy with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources said Wednesday night that agency officials think the mountain lion has made its way out of the city, because there’s been no video or picture evidence or a confirmed sighting in the last few days.