Iowa will shift its focus from building new highways to maintaining what it has, The Des Moines Register reported recently.

The state maintains 9,342 miles of road, the newspaper reported.

During recent years, the state has focused on building more highway capacity, including a number of projects designed to move highway traffic out of towns and into bypass routes, and other projects that have increased the number of four-lane highways.

However, Thomas Hart, chairman of the Iowa Transportation Commission, told The Register that the state needed to focus more attention on rebuilding 30- to 40-year-old interstates that pass through its larger communities such as Iowa City, Sioux City and Council Bluffs.