Nebraska's new roads director says the state will place more emphasis on its economic goals when it prioritizes highway projects in the future.
In the past, the Nebraska Department of Roads has largely relied on traffic counts and other measures that are specific to transportation for deciding where and when to undertake major capital projects.
That philosophy is changing under Kyle Schneweis, whom Gov. Pete Ricketts appointed to lead the department earlier this year.
"We are always trying to get better at how we pick projects and how we address our needs," Schneweis said in a recent interview.
The changes won't have much effect on maintenance of existing roads. Schneweis said that work still will be prioritized based on the pavement's condition.
But the new vision will come into play as the state considers its next round of work funded through the 2011 Build Nebraska Act, which diverts a quarter cent of the state's sales tax revenue to roads.
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Those projects are set through 2022, but the Roads Department is expected to announce a plan for the next decade of projects — with completion dates of 2023 and beyond — sometime next summer.
Schneweis will look to a group of 19 business leaders, industry representatives and state and local officials to help craft exact guidelines for how those projects are selected and prioritized. Members of that group, the Roads Innovation Task Force, will meet for the first time Nov. 18.
It's too early to say how the group's work will affect specific projects that haven't made the state's priority list, like the Lincoln East Beltway, or if the new approach will favor rural areas over big cities or vice versa. But some communities sense new hope for their long-sought endeavors.
Traffic counts are important, said David Copple, a task force member and state highway commissioner from Norfolk, but Nebraska also needs to consider its roads as a "vehicle for additional economic growth."
"Those of us that live in areas outside Omaha and Lincoln also recognize the need for a sophisticated transportation system so that industries in other areas of the state have the ability to transport products, equipment or whatever the case may be ... on a system that adequately serves them," Copple said.
Norfolk is home to two major steel manufacturers and the grocery wholesaler Affiliated Foods Midwest, and business leaders there are pushing hard for the state to widen U.S. 275 to four lanes. That project was envisioned as part of the state's expressway system decades ago.
"I think it's important to complete the expressway system," Schneweis said. "I think there's a lot of other needs, too."
Those include widening Interstate 80 to six lanes west of Lincoln, and new interchanges as Omaha continues to expand to the west.
The new Roads Innovation Task Force won't weigh in on individual projects — only on the criteria used to select them, Schneweis said. He said he will challenge members to "rise above your self interest."
Sen. Jim Smith of Papillion, chairman of the Legislature's Transportation and Telecommunications Committee and a member of the new roads task force, said the group will seek "hard numbers" for the state to act upon.
"I don't think we have to go down the road of having decisions based on who does the best job of lobbying or some subjective consideration," Smith said. "I think the economic impact is going to be as hard of a number as traffic count.
"I'm not just talking about building something in the middle of nowhere assuming people will come."
Schneweis said the department will be "trying to make good economic decisions" when it comes to road construction, and that means looking at measures like job growth and gross domestic product.
In addition to creating criteria for project selection, the task force will advise the Roads Department on new-to-Nebraska methods of financing road and infrastructure projects, including public-private partnerships.
Like most past Roads directors, Schneweis is an engineer. But his background in planning and policy at the Kansas Department of Transportation and six years as a private consultant "will focus our department on forward-thinking initiatives,†Ricketts said when he announced Schneweis' appointment in May.
Schneweis said he brings a broader perspective to his role.
"I think I have an understanding of how transportation fits within our way of life," he said.