Roads, Bridges in Rural Areas Suffering From Same Woes as Cities, Group Reports
This story appears in the May 25 print edition of Transport Topics.
Rural communities are confronting the same infrastructure challenges as America’s larger cities, suffering with dilapidated roads and bridges, a report from a nonprofit transportation research group found.
The Road Information Program, or TRIP, which released the report May 19, recommended modernizing the rural transportation system to accommodate personal and commercial travel.
Trade groups that represent farmers and domestic U.S. tourism along with executives from motorists group AAA backed the report’s findings, and in a press conference asked Congress to pass a long-term surface transportation bill financed with higher fuel taxes.
The report found large stretches of run-down pavement on roads outside of metropolitan areas and a large number of structurally deficient bridges. Arising in large part from the poor infrastructure, fatal crashes per vehicle-miles driven in rural areas were found to far outnumber rates on other roads.
“Without an efficient transportation system, vibrant rural communities cannot exist,” economist Veronica Nigh of the American Farm Bureau Federation said during the press conference.
Farmers need a “three-legged stool” of transportation made up of roads for trucks, freight railroads and waterways for barges, Nigh said. Trucks bring necessary inputs, including seeds, fertilizers and parts for equipment. She also said they are critical for hauling away crops and livestock.
Kathleen Bower, AAA’s vice president of public affairs, said the nation is on the verge of “an imminent funding crisis” for the federal Highway Trust Fund. She urged members of both houses of Congress to “make the tough call and take the tough vote” to increase gasoline and diesel taxes at the pump.
With “potholes the size of craters” a common sight, Bower urged legislators to produce a long-term surface transportation plan. She also criticized Congress for producing numerous short-term patches for the trust fund rather than a multiyear plan, calling the short-term fixes “economically irresponsible.”
The report gave assessments of rural paving quality, structurally deficient bridges and fatality rates for all 50 states based on 2013 and 2014 surveys.
Overall, 15% of the nation’s rural roads, not including interstate highways, were rated as having pavement in poor condition. The five worst states were Michigan, 37% of pavement in poor condition; Rhode Island, 32%; Hawaii and Idaho, 31% each; and Kansas, 30%.
Earlier in May, Michigan voters overwhelmingly rejected a sales tax increase that would have pumped more money into state road repairs.
Using 2014 data, 11% of rural bridges were found to be structurally deficient and 10% were functionally obsolete, the report said.
A structurally deficient bridge is one that needs improvement but is not so damaged it is considered to be unsafe.
The four worst states for bridges were Pennsylvania, with 25% of rural bridges declared structurally deficient; Rhode Island, 23%; Iowa, 22%; and South Dakota, 21%.
Iowa’s Legislature and governor agreed on a transportation package earlier this year to increase repairs and pay for the work with higher fuel taxes.
Highway fatalities, among all vehicle types, were adjusted for 100 million vehicle-miles traveled. In 2013 the rural fatality rate, not including interstate highways, was 2.2 deaths per 100 million miles.
Using this metric, states with the worst fatality rates were Connecticut, 3.57 rural versus 0.59 on all other roads; South Carolina, 3.4 rural versus 0.69; Florida, 3.2 versus 0.96; Montana, 3.09 versus 0.76; and Arizona, 3.01 versus 1.15.
Rocky Moretti, TRIP’s director of research and policy, said rural roads have problems relative to urban highways, such as “roadway features that reduce safety, including narrow lanes, limited shoulders, sharp curves, exposed hazards, pavement drop-offs, steep slopes and limited clear zones along roadsides.”
