Last week I spoke at a ULI event in Iowa along with Paul Trombino, the director of the Iowa Department of Transportation. During the Q&A, I was absolutely stunned by something the director said about the state's highway system.

And so the reality is, the system is going to shrink.

Now I'm stunned not because of what was said -- we've been saying the same thing here for years -- but by who said it. While I've had a couple say this in private, talk of contraction is not something I've heard any other DOT director say in public. This is a big deal.

Here's specifically what he said (I'm planning to release the audio, which isn't great, later this week in a podcast):

I said the numbers before. 114,000 lane miles, 25,000 bridges, 4,000 miles of rail. I said this a lot in my conversation when we were talking about fuel tax increases. It’s not affordable. Nobody’s going to pay.

We are. We’re the ones. Look in the mirror. We’re not going to pay to rebuild that entire system.

And my personal belief is that the entire system is unneeded. And so the reality is, the system is going to shrink.

There’s nothing I have to do. Bridges close themselves. Roads deteriorate and go away. That’s what happens.

And reality is, for us, let’s not let the system degrade and then we’re left with sorta whatever’s left. Let’s try to make a conscious choice – it’s not going to be perfect, I would agree it’s going to be complex and messy – but let’s figure out which ones we really want to keep.

And quite honestly, it’s not everything that we have, which means some changes.