County Commission | The Magazine March 2019 | Page 10

FROM THE COVER
I
Sizing up the Funding Gap for
County Roads and Bridges
t’s getting harder and harder
to find anyone who insists that
Alabama’s county roads and bridges
are just fine exactly as they are. And
consensus is growing that crumbling
roads and aging bridges constitute
a funding problem that needs a
funding solution.
Such a realization begs the
question — how much? Just how
big is the gap between the reality of
today’s funding and the actual need?
The infrastructure problem
has been growing for decades, and
Alabama’s gas tax was last adjusted
more than a quarter of a century
ago. “Quite honestly, we’ve waited
so long to address the problem that
you almost laugh at the numbers
when you hear how big they are,”
said Sonny Brasfield, ACCA
Executive Director.
ACCA research and analysis
indicates that county roads and
bridges face a funding gap totaling at
10 | MARCH 2019
least $200 million a year. That figure
is based on the following:
• Counties maintain about 60,000
miles of roads, and the paving
material used has a wearing life of
15 years.
• Counties maintain more than
8,600 bridges, which are designed
for a 50-year lifespan.
• It would cost $600 million
annually to put all county roads
and bridges on the recommended
cycles — resurfacing paved roads
every 15 years and rebuilding
bridges every 50 years.
• Currently, with all state and local
sources combined, counties receive
less than $400 million a year in
road funding.
“If we got ourselves on a 15-
year road resurfacing cycle and a
50-year bridge cycle, we would need
an additional $200 million a year,
but it would also mean we’d need to
spend all the money we receive now
on those two categories,” Brasfield
said. “There would be no money to
pay employees, maintain equipment,
patch potholes or pay the power bill.”
The bottom line is that current
conditions of county roads and
bridges, which have a significant
impact on safety and the state’s
economy, would make it easy to
justify investing another $200 million
a year. But Brasfield said that an
additional $100 million annually is a
more realistic goal this year.
“Such an investment would
allow us to begin making noticeable
safety improvements on the roads
and bridges depended upon most by
our state’s children, employees and
private citizens,” he said. “Does it get
every road fixed? Does it get every
bridge replaced? Certainly not, but
prioritizing projects will allow us to
meet the most critical infrastructure
needs as soon as possible. n