So-Called Lock Box Could Still be in Play in Senate’s Version of a Road Funding Plan

As lawmakers continue to work out a plan to fix the roads, one idea getting shopped around the Capitol is setting some money aside to be used as new materials and techniques develop for building longer lasting roads.

The proposal is to take $100 million collected from fuel taxes each year and put it into a Roads Innovation Fund.

A task force would be assigned to report on new innovations to build 50 year roads and the legislature could then disperse the money to build those roads.

Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof says there is something to looking into other procedures to build better roads and maybe the state can do better using some of those things.

But, he says, sometimes building better roads could be too expensive, so they need to weigh those costs.

Under the proposal, the task force would need to issue its report by February 2016.