A major criteria for spending funds from the recent stimulus bill was that qualifying projects had to be “shovel ready.” Though that stricture was put in place to speed up the stimulus’s impact on the economy, it’s preventing the replacement of many of the worst roads in the nation. USA Today reports that only 20 percent of the $10 billion in stimulus money being spent on road repairs will go to the 74 counties that host half of the country’s worst roads. According to USA Today‘s analysis, those 74 (mostly-urban) counties will split $1.9 billion in stimulus road repair funds. Counties with no roads in need of major repairs mysteriously ended up with $1.5 billion. “Objective reviews show that Recovery Act dollars are going to the communities that need it the most to repair roads and bridges in need of help,” say Federal Highway Administration spokesfolks. However, USA Today‘s study is based on FHA data from 2007. USA Today has an interactive map comparing miles of “unacceptable” roads and amounts of stimulus dollars allocated. Check it out here.
After driving in California, I hope some funds are diverted to there. The roads were appalling!
I thought the roads in the UK were pretty poor, but they look pristine in comparison to the roads I drove on.
Potholes you could lose a wheel in was a particular speciality there.
When a country is in the midst of class war the minds of the combatants are anywhere but upon the common good.
I don’t know about the stimulus money for roads, but I can say that the money for public water systems is being used for less neccessary projects for two reasons. First the “shovel ready” requirement prevented many poor systems from accessing the money as they did not have the money in the past to cover the cost of drawing up plans. No plans in place, no “free” money. Second, “green” projects were given special preference. In the drinking water industry that means meter installation. Hardly necessary to providing healthy water, but it is “green” in that it typically results in reduced water consumption. Therefore, these projects received money instead of a project to provide adequate water storage.
Like just about every government give away, the ARRA funding is poorly administered. Nothing new to see here, move along.
The fun thing about highway funding is that everyone has a complaint, and everything can be twisted. Some areas have more miles of road, and they argue that funds should be based on their need to do the upkeep for that. Other areas argue the opposite, claiming that their fewer miles of road means that they deserve extra money to build more roads. (That would be how some respond to the USA Today claim.)
Some areas argue that their residents pay more in gas taxes, so they deserve more funding. Others argue that their residents pay less in gas taxes because they’re poor (or they carpool more), so they need more federal money because they can’t afford to pay for it with local money.
Some areas argue that their areas have more people, so they should get more roads. Areas with less people argue that the vast majority of driving done on their roads is by out-of-state people driving through, so they deserve money so that their residents aren’t paying for roads mostly driven by other people.
I think I’ve heard just about everything used as an argument for more road money in both directions.
No big surprise. Just like with anti-terrorism funding, spending allotments are driven more by politics and not genuine need.
A major criterion
It’s called having appropriate taxation to support infrastructure, not putting it off until it can’t be put off anymore (or say a bridge collapses). That or maybe deciding that hundreds of billions in agricultural subsidies each year isn’t really money well spent. But agriculture, like allocating stimulas money, is politically motivated and it’s not what is best but what is best at getting you re-elected (and this applies equally to dem/rep)
there is a transportation budget every year. If your Rep or Congressman isn’t lined up to get your road repairs funded he/she isn’t doing their job. Where I live roads are being repaired all over the place. We are getting ours, if you are not getting yours it’s your own damn fault.
Oh, and I believe you have to match some of this funding yourself.
So if you are enjoying rock bottom taxes, enjoy your shitty roads.
I can say that the money for public water systems is being used for less neccessary projects for two reasons.
Another reason is that the planning process itself takes a long time, thanks to various laws. That means that any real major projects have to be ones that have been studied for five to ten years. That means that if needs have changed since then in unanticipated ways, you can’t deal with.
It’s called having appropriate taxation to support infrastructure, not putting it off until it can’t be put off anymore (or say a bridge collapses).
Ah, the incredibly inaccurate meme strikes again. People throw around the figure of bridge deficiencies, but they ignore how that’s changed over time. There’s always a bridge crisis (there’s been one for at least 30 years) if you listen to the construction firms and DOTs, but according to all the evidence it’s been getting steadily better.
According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, “the number of bridge deficiencies has steadily declined from 34.6% in 1992 to 27.1% in 2003.” (That’s either structurally deficient, where it needs repair, or functionally obsolete, where it’s fine for what it was designed for but it was designed for fewer lanes, lower loads, etc.) Before you complain about what happened after 2003, the FHWA estimates for 2008 hare 25.4%. (Look at the bottom – 601,411 total bridges, 151,391 structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.)
The idea that the nation’s bridges have been getting worse is untrue.
So many news stories led with that 25.4% number, but failed to give historical context. The truth about bridges is that the percentage of bridge deficiencies has been decreasing steadily, not increasing.
I do apologize that the posted FHWA bridge data only goes back to 1992. However, you can see a steady trend of our country’s bridges getting better, not worse.
It’s called having appropriate taxation to support infrastructure
Was actually the point – You deciding to focus on bridges is the same deflection bs that our politicians love to use so much. The more debt we have, the more of what we spend goes to pay the interest on that debt and rather than paying for the things with taxes (whether income, sales, gas, etc.) we just continue with more debt, which in reality leaves less and less to actually pay for anything despite having to spend more and more and I think that our roads are a good example of this.
Politics in federal money allocation? You don’t say.
Just because CA can’t manage it’s own state budget and seems to have chosen to let its roads deteriorate that shouldn’t mean that they get more federal dollars.
With my nearly 30 years as a California state highway engineer, I’m not surprised that politics is involved. But a major culprit in the allocation is the “shovel-ready” requirement.
Most road projects are quick fixes to extend road life or hold off on major reconstruction. Those projects would be shovel ready faster than involved major road rebuilding, and since it’s a stimulus designed to get the construction industry going, that’s where the money should be going.
A grossly deteriorated road, like the one shown, needs to be dug up to a depth of 2-1/2 to 3 feet, exposing utilities. There’s usually 6″ of asphalt, 8″-10″ of aggregate underneath, and 15″-18″ of powdery sub base that needs to be 95% compacted. Curbs, driveways and drainage pipes and inlets are complications and the utility companies have to be notified and given time to perform upgrades before paving is done.
States and local governments have their own priority lists, but in all cases the major reconstructions involve heavily traveled routes that require interim traffic handling and take longer to design and construct, and don’t get to the top of the list quickly. In the case of large projects, no construction company can handle it alone, so time is needed to allow them to combine to put in a unified bid.
The key misconception is that the stimulus money is supposed to address the worst problems. Those problems require a sustained financial commitment over an extended period to address fully, not a quick-fix stimulus program.
“The key misconception is that the stimulus money is supposed to address the worst problems. Those problems require a sustained financial commitment over an extended period to address fully, not a quick-fix stimulus program.”
Exactly. The first criteria for the stimulus program was to get money into the hands of worker bees as soon as possible and to get at least something tangible as a result. Contrast this to the mail-everyone-a-check “tax refund” scheme which was used twice in the Bush era. Did you ever question whether or not the Bush Checks went to those with the greatest identified needs? With those checks, there was absolutely no telling how the money was spent or if it was even spent at all. Calling the prior stimulus checks a “tax cut” was nothing but political window dressing.
The longer term problem of the US’ deteriorating infrastructure is going to require higher gas taxes or some similar money raising method to address.
The Interstate system was conceived and largely built in the Eisenhower years, during which time the US’ top marginal income tax rate was 91% (which hit on the portion of income above about $2.2 million/year adjusted for inflation). Part of why Eisenhower was able to launch ambitious public projects is that the government was bringing in the money to do it with. Eisenhower also had little trouble getting everyone to agree to increased federal gas taxes to pay for his ambitious highway program. When was the last time the people and special interests of the US realized that sometime increased taxes are worthwhile? From today’s viewpoint it is hard to believe Eisenhower was a Republican, and a very popular one at that.
Around here they are putting in curbs and sidewalks with bumps for the blind, even though no one who is blind goes for a walk, ever. It’s heart warming to see crews work so hard on a sidewalk at an intersection with 3 inch deep potholes yards away.
PA sprays oil and stone onto perfectly good roads because apparently they have money directed towards the project. It’s funny to see massive potholes, cracks and frost heaves sprayed over with oil and stone chipped.
Above average roads are stripped of 2 inches of asphalt, left rough for a month then resurfaced. Thanks, but what about the secondary roads with multiple repairs and serious issues with the underlying road bed? I’ve seen the same over repaired potholes since the mid 80’s.
It’s too bad we don’t have more control over these decisions.
Did you ever question whether or not the Bush Checks went to those with the greatest identified needs?
Well, it didn’t go to me because my income was too high, so I’d say that need was considered somehow. Unless you think upper-middle and upper class people who bought too much home have “the greatest identified needs.”
With those checks, there was absolutely no telling how the money was spent or if it was even spent at all.
True, some people saved the money or used it to pay off debts, which some economists consider a bad thing. But otherwise it’s a philosophical question of whether you think people do a better or worse job deciding where to spend their money than government planners and the political process.
Government spending definitely results in a lot of projects that people wouldn’t pay for if it required using their own money. Not because they couldn’t afford it– with some of these projects, if you gave the money directly to the local governments or taxpayers, they’d choose to spend it on something else. It’s just that you can only get Federal money for a project that has undergone the NEPA process. But what if the only projects that have already gone through the environmental and planning process you have sitting around are sitting around precisely because they aren’t worth it? Locales can get money for things that they studied and the study revealed it wasn’t worth it, instead of their current top priorities where NEPA isn’t satisfied yet.
The government decided that people would be better off buying new cars than doing home improvements or paying down debt, rather than letting people themselves make that decision in an unbiased fashion.
Was actually the point – You deciding to focus on bridges is the same deflection bs that our politicians love to use so much.
You’re the one who’s engaging in deflection. You mentioned bridges– let’s finish that quote of yours: “It’s called having appropriate taxation to support infrastructure, not putting it off until it can’t be put off anymore (or say a bridge collapses).”
You offer a bridge collapsing as evidence of infrastructure not being supported; it was pretty clear to me that you were trying to use the bridge collapse in Minneapolis as evidence. But anecdote is not data. As soon as I present the far more detailed contradictory data, you then deny that bridges were part of your argument. But what other examples did you offer to back up your assertion?
I’ve provided evidence that one of your examples was false, and that in one key measure of infrastructure– maintaining bridges– money is being spent to address the problem and it’s been getting steadily better over the long term.
Shouldn’t you (and John Horner) have to provide some evidence of your assertion of crumbling infrastructure? Or else you’re just engaging in rhetoric with no facts to back it up, just like our politicians love to do so much.
Anyway, fine, you want to talk highways instead of bridges? We’ll go to the FHWA’s 2006 Status of the Nation’s Highways, Bridges, and Transit.
From Chapter 3: System Conditions: Highways and Bridges:
In 2004, 44.2 percent of travel on arterials and collectors for which data are available occurred on pavements with “good” ride quality, up from 39.8 percent in 1995. The percentage of VMT on roads with “acceptable” ride quality (a lower standard that includes roads classified as “good”) fell from 86.6 percent to 84.9 percent over the same period of time.
You’ll also find in Chapter 4 that according to the FTA bus age and condition has been relatively stable, and the condition of rail stations and rail maintenance facilities have improved slightly, and the average age of rail cars decreased slightly.
Roads and bridges are being maintained. The key metric that’s getting worse is congestion. (See other chapters in the report.) Possible solutions to that include congestion charges, building more roads, or spending on alternate means of travel. But the need to relieve congestion is different from “supporting infrastructure” and maintenance of “deteriorating infrastructure,” which is what you and John Horner focused on.
Roads are one of the few things government should be concerned exclusively with since traveling benefits us all. To move goods around the country is a requirement not easily met by rail, air or even boat. If really good roads were a priority for our tax dollars I, like most people, would have no problem paying the bill.
But too many examples exist where taxes collected for roads were spent elsewhere. Millions of dollars in bridge tolls were diverted in Philadelphia for “development projects” including museums, housing, river dredging and huge salaries for the Port Authority chiefs.
While the diverted causes were probably grand and great, they should be funded some other way instead of soaking motorists crossing a bridge over a natural barrier to get to work.