One of the big reasons House Speaker Crisanta Duran wants to get a statewide transportation deal done this session is so big cities don’t break off to pay for local needs and leave places such as Lamar behind.

Prowers County on the Eastern Plains isn’t taking a back seat. The County Commission talked last week about a public-private partnership, the so-called P3 that President Donald Trump is looking to fast-track. Trump’s plan suggests tax incentives could raise $1 trillion for such projects.

The project? The Lamar Bypass, a toll road to keep trucks out of the lovely plains town named for Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar.

Lamar needs a bypass because of trucks shipping gravel “and a lot of cool things,” local developer Karl Nyquist said.

“We’re thinking with this new administration, there might be an opportunity to do more of a P3 deal on the bypass,” he told the County Commission, the Ledger reported.

Nyquist said one of his lawyers is Bruce James, who worked on the public-private partnership at Denver’s Union Station.

“It will be a toll road for just trucks,” Nyquist said. “It’s a little bit of a toll on us because the highest percentage are probably our own gravel trucks going over it, but it’s the cost savings of not having to go through downtown and get delayed.”

Commissioners are entertaining the idea. Commissioner Ron Cook asked to see a proposal in writing before the commission.

“I think we can look at it,” Commissioner Wendy Buxton-Andrade said.