Nebraska Forms Transportation Task Force
Nebraska Department of Roads Director Kyle Schneweis is the driving force behind the formation of the Innovation Task Force for Transportation, which will focus on ways that the public and private sectors can work together, provide opportunities to use new technologies and discuss how transportation investments can help grow Nebraska’s economy. The task force also is empowered to identify ways to modernize NDOR’s business practices, increase transparency and encourage stakeholder engagement.
“As we explore less familiar areas, such as the economic impacts of our transportation investments and innovative funding, finance and project delivery, we need to look at these issues from all sides before we can decide which of these ideas make the most sense here in Nebraska,” Schneweis said. “Our partners can help us to do that.”
Nebraska Trucking Association President Larry Johnson said he was pleased that NDOR asked him to be part of the 19-member task force, which is scheduled to hold its first meeting on Nov. 18 and, as of now, has an open-ended tenure.
“The trucking industry in Nebraska has always been in the forefront of looking at how we can pay our fair share of our how our infrastructure is built, not only for safety and efficiency, but also for affordability and when or where it’s built,” Johnson said. “Our Department of Roads is a good steward of our highway trust fund. There just hasn’t been enough money to meet everybody’s wants versus their needs. I expect that our task force will have a lot of discussion about how we find additional revenue to meet the state’s transportation needs while also making sure that we have a good way of determining a want versus a need.”
In 2011, Nebraska’s Legislature set aside a quarter of a cent of the sales tax, raising more than $80 million annually for transportation. Next, a fuel-tax increase of 1.5 cents per gallon will be levied in each of the next four years. And the state government announced in August that it would return more than $3 million to local governments thanks to efficiencies in road projects that reduced preliminary engineering and construction costs.
“Building a 21st-century infrastructure is an important part of growing Nebraska,” Governor Pete Ricketts said. “Good roads are important for public safety because they provide safe transportation corridors for our families commuting to work, dropping their kids off at school and making a trip to the grocery store. As we continue to invest in building new infrastructure, we must continue to rely on the same fiscally responsible financing principles that Nebraskans live by every day.”
