County Commission | The Magazine December 2018 | Page 24

FROM THE COVER
Other State Sources
State law allocates a portion of
the following to county roads and
bridges: driver’s license fees and
motor vehicle licensing taxes and
registration fees. All counties also
receive a percentage of the trust
income from the Alabama Trust
Fund, and some of these dollars can
be directed to roads and bridges.
24 | DECEMBER 2018
Protecting Alabamians’ Investment
$387,000,000,000
Total Value of Road and Bridge Infrastructure in Alabama
What is the single largest capital investment citizens in this state
have made? The answer is Alabama’s network of roads and bridges,
according to Justice Smyth from the Alabama Transportation Institute.
Taken altogether, the 213,127 miles of roadways and 15,954 bridges
are a large and incredibly valuable asset, built by earlier generations
of Alabamians.
However, the current annual investment equals less than 0.5 percent
of the asset’s current cost, Smyth said.
“For most people, your biggest investment is your house. If I’ve got
a leaky roof, and I don’t do anything to replace that roof or repair that
roof, it’s eventually going to get worse and worse and worse until I’ve
got water everywhere from a bad rainstorm,” Smyth said. On the other
hand, “if I reinvest money into my largest asset, it only protects and
preserves that value — so we can’t not do anything to address the issues
for the transportation network.”