FcLZmIeRwO- Transportation for America May 1, 2019 Under President Trump, USDOT has effectively turned the formerly innovative BUILD program into little more than a rural roads program, dramatically undercutting both its intent and utility. If your budget represents your politics, then the administration has just added to the road-building frenzy, from stating in the party’s 2016 platform that they hoped to phase out funding for transit to replacing the Obama-era TIGER program with BUILD, a transportation grant program that’s swapped a focus on placemaking and alternative transit for more roads. But no grand bargain has been seriously proposed, debated, and voted upon. There has been increased movement at the federal level for a new infusion of infrastructure spending ever since Trump was elected President. Shouldn’t better spending practices come before Infrastructure Week? Urban areas contain approximately 80 percent of the population, yet don’t receive an equivalent share of the overall budget. Even though rural roads are used by less drivers and typically are in better shape, they still receive roughly the same amount of annual repair funding, $10.7 billion on average, as urban roadways. In addition, Repair Priorities found a rural/urban divide in road investment. But that amount is more than double what the nation spent on capital expenditures for highways across every level of government in 2015, $105.4 billion. would need to spend $231 billion per year, for six years, to keep existing roadways in acceptable condition, all while bringing the backlog of roads in poor condition into good repair. 83 times, new roads that require $5 billion a year extra to keep in good condition.Īccording to Repair Priorities, the U.S. The vicious cycle of expansion, and the growing burden of maintaining our roadways, has become a significant financial drain, according to the report, which analyzes data from the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) “Highway Statistics Series.” Between 20, the nation built enough new lane miles to criss-cross the width of the U.S. “But our spending priorities rarely match this oft-repeated rhetoric.” Shutterstock Building enough roadway to criss-cross the country 83 times “Whether during debate over an infrastructure bill or the long-term reauthorization looming next year, the rhetoric I hear over and over again from Capitol Hill and the White House about the need to invest more money in transportation is all about ‘repairing our crumbling roads and bridges,’” said Beth Osborne, director of Transportation for America, in a statement. Every new lane-mile of road costs approximately $24,000 per year to preserve in a state of good repair, according to the report. Not only does the expansion mean starving transit systems of money for more efficient ways of getting around, such as mass transit, but by adding more and more roadways, state spending priorities inevitably lead to more induced demand, and even more roadway maintenance obligations ignored during the next asphalt expansion. Despite long-standing complaints about potholes, crumbling roads, and unfixed highways, they spent as much building new roads as repairing new ones, spending $120 billion on expansion from 2009 to 2014. States simply neglect basic repair in favor of expanding roadways: In the last two long-term transportation reauthorizations, states were given increased flexibility to spend federal dollars. But according to Repair Priorities, its as much about choices than budget shortfalls. It’s typically assumed that a lack of funding for basic repairs causes this problem. roads in “poor condition” increased from 14 to 20 percent, while 37 states saw the percentage of their roads in poor condition increase from 2009 to 2017. “ Repair Priorities 2019,” a report released today by Transportation for America and Taxpayers for Common Sense, found that between 20, the percentage of U.S. How can more spending mean worse results? Thanks to American transportation policy, it’s a reality painfully understood by millions of drivers, who commute on a deteriorating network of roads right as local and state transit agencies spend increasing sums of money on new highways.
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