Dive Brief:
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America’s roads and bridges need $740 billion worth of improvements, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation reported this week.
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The association’s 2015 Bottom Line Report outlines years of underspending, resulting in “an aging system in dire need of a long-term, sustainable source of funding.” Annual spending of $88 billion a year, the report noted, falls far short of the annual $120 billion investment that is needed to clear the backlog of rehabilitation and reconditioning projects that built up during the recession.
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Michael Melaniphy, president of the American Public Transportation Association, which co-sponsored the study, said the country’s public transportation system also is “crumbling” and requires another $17.1 billion a year to keep it “operating safely and efficiently."
Dive Insight:
Those numbers are for repairs and rehabilitation, and don’t include a figure for needed expansion.
Government missed a chance to “catch up” on road and transit improvements during the recession, when demand for growth was lower, the report noted. But because local, state and federal budgets were limited by the same recession, time exasperated the problems of a deteriorating infrastructure.