Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
total area. Almost all are surfaced with asphalt, an increasingly expensive
petroleum product. Ninety percent of travel in the United States occurs on
highways, and three-quarters of all domestic goods are shipped by road.
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As with other parts of our infrastructure, the roads are deteriorating,
and federal and state funds are inadequate to maintain them. The federal
highway trust fund is the source of federal funds for roads and bridges,
the monies coming almost entirely from federal taxes on gasoline and
diesel fuel, which have not increased since 1993; they remain at 18.4
cents a gallon for gasoline and 24.4 cents a gallon for diesel fuel. Since
1993, the trust fund's purchasing power has decreased by 30 percent
because of infl ation and skyrocketing construction costs.
The fund has now run dry and in fact had an $8.3 billion defi cit on
September 30, 2008.
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Congress had to quickly appropriate $8 billion
in 2008 and $7 billion more in 2009 so the fund could pay its bills and
remain solvent. The last funding bill passed by Congress in 2005 was 24
percent less than the Federal Highway Administration said it needed.
States are similarly strapped. Most state gasoline taxes are based on
volume (number of gallons sold), not price, so that state revenues for
road maintenance have not increased even as the price of gasoline has
risen sharply.
Our national highway system is fi fty years old in many places; when
it was constructed during the Eisenhower administration, it carried 65
million cars and trucks. Today that number has nearly quadrupled to
246 million.
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The number of miles driven jumped 41 percent between
1990 and 2007, from 2.1 trillion to 3 trillion, two-thirds of it on urban
roads. According to the American Association of State Highway and
Transportation Offi cials, one-third of the nation's major roads are in
“poor or mediocre condition,” and 36 percent of major urban highways
are congested (not a surprise to motorists).
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Motorists spent 4.2 billion
hours a year stuck in traffi c in 2007, wasting 2.8 billion gallons of gas.
According to a study by the Road Information program and the
American Association of State Highway and Transportation Offi cials,
the continued increase in urban traffi c puts signifi cant stress on roads as
transportation funding either falls or fails to keep pace with the rate of
road degradation. The study also found that poor roads cost drivers a
considerable amount of money in extra operating expenses, such as
accelerated vehicle depreciation, additional repair costs, increased fuel
consumption, and tire wear, or an average per driver of $458 a year.
The stimulus package passed in 2009 will provide $27 billion for highway
projects, but the report's authors said this amount can only be a begin-
ning to more investment. The president of the Northern Virginia Trans-
