In Wisconsin we know that every year there will be snow. Lots and lots of snow. In 18 years of living there I never once remember a time where there was more than half a day of our rural road not being plowed. I remember seeing plows driving around when there was no snow falling because they knew it was coming and as soon as the first flake hit the ground the buckets went down.
In Iowa, ever year there were multiple times when I'd be stuck at home, unable to get to school or work because the roads weren't plowed. Major Highways! I'd call the DOT and their response was "we are just waiting until the snow stops so we don't have to plow multiple times." This was their response in the afternoon having not plowed all morning. One year they ran out of salt for the roads and had to use expired Seasoning Salt from a local manufacturer. Everyone complained because their car smelled like Garlic Bread. No one seemed to care about the fact that Iowa is in the Midwest and for some strange reason the people running the DOT didn't think to have adequate supplies.
Wisconsin has a huge vacation market. A large amount of road usage is by people traveling from out of state up to the north woods for hunting, fishing, camping, etc. Iowa does not have this type of road usage.
Iowa has two main highways. Hwy 80 is a shipping lane that connects Chicago to the western half of the US. Hwy 35 is a north south route going from Minneapolis/St. Paul all the way down to Austin Texas and connects a lot of major cities along the way.
Hwy 80 (and hwy 88) are used so much in Illinois that Illinois actually charges you a toll to use it. Iowa has the same traffic on 80 but does not charge a toll. One state has figured out how to pay for their road usage while the other has not. THIS is the real issue with why Iowa's DOT can't do anything right. They spend money in the wrong places, don't get enough income to pay for things they should and for some strange reason don't understand that they have a problem.
