March 18, 2024

IDOT eyes Newton for statewide training center

Supervisors to hear proposal Tuesday

The Iowa Department of Transportation will pitch a proposal Tuesday to the Jasper County Board of Supervisors to invest in a statewide traffic incident management training center in Newton.

Jasper County Economic Development Corporation Executive Director Chaz Allen said he was approached about land south of the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office, about 36 acres of the former site of the county care facility, which could be utilized for the training center.

The proposal states as a part of the Iowa DOT’s overall strategy for responding to traffic incidents statewide, the department should invest in and develop an Iowa Traffic Incident Management Training Center to allow responders to train on safe, efficient incident clearance techniques.

The purpose of the training center is to teach best practices for safe, quick clearance in an actual road way environment using simulated crashes and to develop well-trained responders to help improve traffic incident response. By fulfilling those purposes, it improves the safety of both responders and travelers, reduces risk of secondary crashes, decreases traffic delays and lowers overall incident response times. It is estimated that traffic incident management can potentially decrease incident duration by 30 to 40 percent.

The Office of Motor Vehicle Enforcement has a training officer who could provide scheduling services and oversight of the training center. The center would be available for law enforcement, fire and rescue, emergency medical service, towing and recovery, emergency management, communications, highway and transportation and dispatch within Iowa.

“This is not just a Jasper County thing, this is a statewide thing, this is something that will train any law enforcement that work on the road across the state,” Allen said. “This is something that is one of a kind west of the Mississippi.”

The basic elements of the Iowa training center include simulated sections of roadway including two, four and six lane sections, shoulders and paint striping, two and four-way intersections, an on-ramp and a guardrail including cable rail on an estimated footprint of five to 10 acres.

In addition to the primary function of serving as the Iowa Traffic Incident Management Training Center, some additional training functions at the facility that have been identified are crash scene survey investigation, pedestrian involved in crash, cable rail release training, a K-9 obstacle course, towing rodeo and search and rescue.

Specific cost will depend upon site location and unique design elements. It is desirable to locate property currently owned by a state or local government agency. In general terms, costs will need to be established for the following items — property acquisition, site design, grading, paving, classroom facility, maintenance and utilities.

Doug Bishop, chair of JEDCO, said the job of economic development is to round up these types of opportunities and see if they are worth pushing for. Bishop said the plan will be laid out for the supervisors Tuesday and they can ask questions.

“If there is as many people as we have discussed to be involved in this it could really generate a couple million dollars and sales tax, housing, food, gas, jobs — it’s all a part of the big package,” Bishop said.

Contact Kayla Langmaid at 641-792-3121 ext. 6513 or klangmaid@newtondailynews.com