Congress is one tiny step closer to funding America's highways, as the Senate decided Wednesday night to open debate on their Highway Trust Fund bill as the July 31 deadline looms. The fund has been in dire straits the last few years, spending more than it's taking in. Because it gets its money from the federal gas tax, the trust fund has suffered as cars have grown more fuel efficient and some Americans have cut back on their driving.
Amid this fight, you could be forgiven for thinking that America's roads are getting worse all the time. Politicians constantly invoke America's "crumbling roads and bridges," and America's roads merit a grade of D on the widely cited report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers (a trade group whose members, to be fair, have a stake in roadbuilding projects).
It's true spending on US roads just keeps slipping, when you compare it to the size of the economy. According to the CBO, as of 2010, total spending was more than one-third lower than it had been in the 1960s:
But here's a surprise — the condition of those roads appears to be getting better, when you look at Federal Transit Administration data. According to the organization's latest condition and performance report, the share of miles traveled on roads with a ride quality ranked "good" is in fact improving, while the share on "acceptable" roads has held relatively steady.
That data only goes through 2010, but there's evidence that roads have improved further (if slightly), having improved from a grade of D- in 2009 to D in 2013 on the civil engineers' report card. (And it's not because we're driving more on the nice roads, says Adie Tomer, a fellow at Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program — the roads are simply getting smoother.)
Not only that, but the share of bridges that are deficient has declined in the last few years, from nearly 30 percent in 1998 to 21.4 percent in 2010.
If you follow the debate over infrastructure spending, or if you ever fume your way through morning-commute-highway-parking-lots, or if you swerve to miss potholes, that might make no sense. But America's roads are getting better. How has that happened, despite stagnant spending?
It's because priorities have shifted, says Tomer. Multi-year building projects wound down, including the interstate highway system — though started in 1956, it still had some segments that, as of the late 1990s, weren't yet complete — and the transportation focus shifted from building to maintenance, he says. The stimulus passed in 2009 likewise overwhelmingly spent on repairing versus building new roads.
"It's not a surprise that as we've been doing that, the conditions of the roads are going up, there's more with both more passable and good grades, and that's a really positive sign," Tomer said. "We're probably not where we want to be yet, but it's kind of an endless fight."
Congress Could Pass More Funding...But Then What?
That "endless fight" is an important point to consider as Congress inches closer to passing a transit bill. Keeping the funding stream going is one basic step. Congress (and the states that also fund and undertake the building projects) have some bigger questions to answer about the state of transportation in the U.S.
For one thing, just because roads are getting better doesn't mean they're good enough. If only two-thirds of roads are "good," there's plenty of room for improvement, Tomer points out.
It also doesn't mean highway spending (at the federal or state and local levels) is at the right level. While there is no hard and fast "optimal level" of highway spending, Tomer said, there is such thing as too high or too low.
"There is probably a floor, and there's definitely a ceiling," he said. "We probably are near [the floor]."
Really, the highway funding fight is an opportunity for members of Congress (and, by extension, states) to think about their priorities. Parts of the interstate system are reaching the end of their lives, for example. Can highways keep getting patched or at some point do they have to rebuilt? Or, perhaps, has the country overbuilt in some parts of the country?
These sorts of tough choices are popping up nationwide. Iowa's secretary of transportation, for example, recently declared that the state both needs fewer roads and can't afford the number it currently has.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin is planning to spend $7 billion on highways surrounding Milwaukee — highways the city just might not need — as Michael Grunwald argues in a piece in Politico.
"Our approach right now at the federal level is, 'Let's throw some money at the problem, and let's try to get as much as we can get,'" said Paul Lewis, director of policy and finance at Eno Center for Transportation, a nonpartisan transit think tank. "But the federal program doesn't necessarily target the money to the most effective projects."
Roads Aren't Everything
In addition, roads aren't always the answer. If you're concerned with solving massive gridlock, for example, roads might make traffic worse. More investments in public transit might be a better choice to reduce traffic.
So as it considers these periodic patches to funding bills, Congress (and states, who end up using the highway funds) need to think about not just how much funding it gives out, but the kind of long-term projects they need to fund.
Some long-term projects have languished while Congress has passed multiple stopgap measures. A road that requires years of planning can stall if federal funds to help build it are only authorized for the next couple of months. The current bill in the Senate does extend transportation policy for six years, but lawmakers have only found funding for three.
"Even a three-year commitment, that would be significant. But back in the day, [with] a five- or six-year transportation bill, states could plan accordingly," says Casey Binges, senior managing director at the American Society of Civil Engineers. "The states have been acting responsibly, and Congress has to get in line with the states."
And even while road quality improves, long-term fixes will be needed, Lewis added.
"A good road might mean it's recently received a small layer of asphalt to patch it up for a year-and-a-half, and in a year-and-a-half it will be marked by potholes again," he pointed out.
So while funding quantity matters, politicians at the federal and state levels also need to think about the quality of that spending.
"What it leaves us with is what do we do next?" Tomer said. "How do we need to build our communities, especially from a transportation perspective, to get people where they want to go?"
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