The Arkansas Trucking Assn. has been trying to get rid of the Arkansas Highway Commission, but last week, officials from the two met to see if they could work together.

John Lipton, chairman of the Highway Commission, told the Democrat-Gazette after the invitation was issued in May that in the eight years he's been on the panel, commissioners ahve never sat down to meet with the trucking association.
Bill Keene, chairman of the trucking association's board and transportation director for Tyson Foods, told the Associated Press following a four-hour meeting that it's important to figure out "how we make the decisions to plan for the future."
Keene and other trucking executives met with members of the Highway Commission in a meeting sought by Lipton. The trucking association presented its analysis of trucking's share of highway funding and gave its opinion on how the state's future highway funding should be prioritized.
Truckers believe the commission should concentrate on maintaining current roads, rather than building new ones, with an emphasis on the roads with the most traffic. Commission member J.W. "Buddy" Benafield told the AP that while about half of the state's highway miles generate 92 percent of the traffic, you can't ignore the rest of the system.
During this year's state legislative session, the trucking association lobbied for a bill that would have changed the way the commission was set up. The bill, which failed, would have increased the number of commissioners from five to eight, and had them elected rather than appointed by the governor.
The state's trucking industry has argued that the commission has too much power, with few checks and balances. Truckers began asking for reform after 2-cent fuel tax increases in 1999 and 2000. They were also angered by a commission move to impose tolls on Arkansas Interstates over the objections of the governor.