Environment | Ten Across
How the U.S. is filling the potholes in transportation infrastructure funding amid worsening climate change
Photo by Jared Murray on Unsplash
Editor’s note: This article is part of a collaboration between APM Research Lab and the Ten Across initiative, housed at Arizona State University.
by EMILY SCHMIDT | June 23, 2022
Numerous washed-out roads and collapsed bridges in Yellowstone National Park are just the most recent examples of America’s delicate transportation infrastructure in the face of climate change. The combination of unprecedented rainfall and quickly melting mountain snow resulted in a massive flood that forced the park’s indefinite closure on June 13.
Over 40% of all U.S. roads are in poor condition, and 42% of bridges are at least 50 years old, according to the 2021 Infrastructure Report Card. These numbers, among other growing infrastructure problems, pose a concern to experts as extreme weather events become more frequent, which put additional stress on transportation infrastructure. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average hurricane season this year, adding to a decade of record-shattering storms.
Dr. Mikhail Chester, director of the Metis Center for Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering at Arizona State University, says America’s vast transportation infrastructure is changing but not quickly enough.
“It’s very difficult to imagine a near-term future where we rehabilitate all of these systems for the needs of the future fast enough,” he said. “We’re going to have a gap between what we need these systems to do and what they are doing.”
While many regions of the U.S. are enduring worsening climate change effects and are in desperate need of infrastructure repair, Chester says the “Ten Across” region is a unique case study to examine the future of transportation. Interstate 10 connects this eight-state corridor, including the three most populous states, and numerous metropolitan areas. And within these states are some of the country’s most structurally deficient and oldest roads and bridges.
Roads and highways
In 2021, there were an estimated 289.5 million registered vehicles in the U.S. That number is projected to increase by a million just this year. With more than 4 million miles of public roadway, keeping up the condition of these urban and rural roads in addition to highways has become increasingly important as more vehicles hit the roads. In fact, a 2017 report from the Foundation of Traffic Safety cited a $146 billion backlog of just roadway safety improvements.
In 2020, California, Texas and Florida were among states that spent the most on highway infrastructure needs. However, California and Texas’ spending changed drastically from 2019 to 2020, increasing by over 20% and decreasing by 25%, respectively. From a distance measurement, California has only two-thirds the number of highway lane miles as Texas. In other words, Texas has comparatively more miles of highway to upkeep than California but spent almost $6 million less on its highways in 2020.
Texas also has about 2.5 times as many highway lane miles as Florida but spent just $4 million more in 2020. Florida’s spending decreased about 1% from 2019, which was among 13 states that spent less money in 2020 than the year before.
Kathi Ruvarec, co-chair of Florida’s 2021 Infrastructure Report Card, says her state’s averages for various types of infrastructure are actually above average compared to the nation, including roads.
“We may have about 31% of our major roadways in poor condition, as compared with 42% nationally, and a lot of that good performance has to do with the asset management program that the state of Florida [uses to] maintains our roads,” she said.
Like Florida, Louisiana is battered by tropical storms and hurricanes annually. Though hurricane seasons vary in severity, they continue to degrade the condition of roads in gulf states. Brandie Richardson Bordelon, public information officer for the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, says the transportation infrastructure there is struggling physically and financially.
“Many of our state roadways and bridges are reaching, and have outlived their design life and are showing their age,” she said.
“Our state’s infrastructure system is relying solely on a fuel tax that’s over 30 years old. As a result, we have a backlog of $15 billion in road and bridge repairs that will never be eliminated with our current gas tax.”
Bridges
Compared to roadways, the 617,000 bridges in the U.S. are in overall better condition. While only 7.5% of bridges are in poor or structurally deficient condition, 42% are over 50 years old and aging every day. The 2021 Infrastructure Report Card notes that although the number of deficient bridges is decreasing, so is the rate of improvements. Most notably, it would take until 2071 to finish all repairs that are currently necessary — a $125 billion backlog — with the current rate of investment.
For most of the last 20 years, bridges categorized as “good” outnumbered those that are “fair.” However, in 2019, the number of “fair” bridges exceeded the number of “good” bridges and has continued in this inverse trend through 2021. The number of “poor” bridges has gradually increased over the last two decades, but the largest increase (12%) came between 2017 and 2021.
In July 2015, a 30-foot section of an I-10 bridge collapsed from flooding in Desert Center, California, closing the highway between Palm Springs and the Arizona state line. Two people were trapped, with one sustaining moderate injuries. The bridge, built in 1967, had passed inspection only months before in March.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, Texas has the most bridges of any state by far with over 55,000. The next closest is Ohio with about 27,000. Although other states in the Ten Across region range greatly in their bridge count, several have more or close to equal “fair” and “good” bridges. Louisiana has the most “poor” bridges, more than Texas and California.
Bordelon said bridge preservation is one of Louisiana’s most pressing issues. The state has approximately 13,000 bridges, with 7,900 owned by the state. She said it would take $3.3 billion to address bridge needs for those in the state system, and it’s projected to increase to $4 billion in their next current needs study.
In Florida, Ruvarec said new smart bridge technology is being implemented in the construction of new bridges. This includes sensors that help dictate corrosivity, movement, material age and stresses. Carbon fiber reinforced polymers are also being used in place of steel because they’re stronger and less corrosive.
She also pointed to a study in the process of examining bridge replacement along the I-10.
“The thought process is…rather than widening these bridges to meet capacity, we’ll replace them because the bridges were built originally in the 1960s,” Ruvarec said.
She said replaced bridges should be expected to last 75 years with updated safety standards and smart technology.
The infrastructure bill
In November 2021, President Joe Biden signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill into law. This multi-goal legislation provides funding for numerous infrastructure projects, including rebuilding America’s roads and bridges. The investment in transportation infrastructure will focus on repairing and rebuilding for “climate change mitigation, resilience, equity and safety for all users.”
This funding comes at a critical point in time as populations begin to grow and shift toward already large metropolitan areas. Chester said it’s interesting to consider how companies, from Walmart and Amazon to Google and Apple, are taking steps to advance the nation’s transportation infrastructure in their own ways.
“We're divorcing ourselves from the uncertainty of the legacy infrastructure, given that it's not changing fast enough for what we need it to do and instead deploying our own transportation infrastructure,” he said.
While companies make creative strides forward to get around aging infrastructure, this law will provide funding over the next five years to each state depending on their needs. Texas will receive the most federal highway aid, followed by California and Florida. In contrast, California will receive the most bridge repair and replacement aid, but Texas will only receive about half the funding ($537 million) that Louisiana does ($1 billion).
Bordelon said Louisiana’s $1 billion in funding over the next five years will be crucial to meeting their infrastructure goals. The $202.6 million for this year, which hasn’t been allocated yet, will improve about 400 bridges throughout the state.
In order to best allocate funding where it’s most needed, Chester said people must realize that climate change will not affect every region the same. There’s a large range of uncertainty in which people must operate. However, he stressed two things those building and those using this infrastructure must think about.
“You have to look at the alignment of where we think climate change is going to make conditions worse, and where these infrastructure or portions of the infrastructure are already not keeping up,” he said.