Pavement Preservation Journal, Winter 2011, Vol. 5, No. 2
J. Baxter Burns,II, President, FP2, Inc.
A lot of us in the highway infrastructure community were about to turn blue in mid-September, as the industry hurtled toward a brick wall: Expiration at the end of September of all federal funding for surface transportation infrastructure.
Collectively we were holding our breath because failure to renew funding would have stopped renewal of our nation’s soft wheel transportation infrastructure in its tracks. While federal funding principally drives capacity improvements — not pavement preservation — federal money provided to state DOTs for capacity improvements frees up funding for state preservation and maintenance, among other tasks.
Over the past 10 to 15 years the federal share of highway and transit capital investment has averaged around 45 percent, with state and local governments providing 55 percent, according to the American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials (AASHTO). Thus it’s easy to see that subtraction of federal funding from the mix will have catastrophic impacts on our transportation infrastructure.