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How bad are the highways, bridges, and roads that crisscross this great nation of America? They are in such need of attention that, during the long national nightmare that was our recent election (the most seemingly divided this country has been since Reconstruction), out of all the things that our two presidential candidates butted heads over—Russian operatives and tax returns, accusations of terrible misdeeds, and everything else—just about the only thing that they agreed on was the state of our nation’s infrastructure.
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“We are going to rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals,” said Trump during his victory speech. “We’re going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none.”
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During the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton pledged $275 billion to resurrecting our nation’s roadway infrastructure. Not to be outdone, now-President Trump pledged a full $1 trillion. He won the election. Now, where is that money going to go? It’ll go to our overall infrastructure, our freeways, our aging bridges, and even our railways and water pipelines, a spending expenditure that both Republicans and Democrats can agree on.
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Here’s why: Americans are driving more than ever. Buoyed by cheap gasoline and a resurgent economy, we shouldn’t be surprised that we’ve collectively driven 3.17 trillion miles this year—up from 2015’s total of 3.06 trillion miles. In fact, Americans have been driving more each year since 2012. From 1971 to the Great Recession of 2008, our overall mileage as a nation has grown and grown and grown. There’s little to indicate that there will be a dip.
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As a result, our roads have undeniably taken a beating. The American Society of Civil Engineers rates our current state of roadway infrastructure a D, for poor. “Currently, 32 percent of America’s major roads are in poor or mediocre condition,” the group said in its 2013 report card. The group also determined that “the average age of the nation’s 607,380 bridges is currently 42 years.” Nearly half of our roads face severe congestion. Poor pavement costs motorists $324 a year, on average, in repairs and operating costs, totaling $67 billion per year. Similarly, nearly half of the miles traveled on urban roads, or 47 percent, are over terrible pavement.
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According to the same report card, $3.6 trillion would need to be invested into U.S. infrastructure—public transit, roads, repaving, new bridges, and traffic improvements—by 2020 to help millions of Americans get to work and back.
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For the millions of Americans who do not consider public transportation a viable option, roads will still be the ticket, the way forward.
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At a local level, voters in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Atlanta all helped pass measures on public transit and light rail—in Los Angeles, for example, “voters approved a half-cent increase in the sales tax to raise nearly $120 billion for the transportation system,” reported the New York Times. Seattle approved 62 new miles of light rail. Atlanta approved a light-rail project alongside bicycle and pedestrian paths. This year held the most ballot measures related to transportation ever, according to the Center for Transportation Excellence: 78 measures to be considered, across 26 states, with over $200 billion in funding at stake.
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More public transportation will inevitably take the strain away from our overburdened roadways. And for the millions of Americans who do not consider public transportation a viable option, roads will still be the ticket, the way forward. There’s nothing preventing roads from coexisting with walkable cities, environmental friendliness, and our eventual adoption of electric or autonomous cars. The way forward is smarter roads and highways that still allow cities and their pedestrians to breathe, projects that simultaneously preserve the necessary pathways for cars, trucks, and commerce.
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That seems to be the pattern moving forward. Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct tunnel moves a prominent state highway underground, along the coast, eliminating an overpass similar to San Francisco’s Embarcadero project in 1991. Massachusetts recently tore down the toll lanes on its famed Mass Pike, switching entirely over to electronic tolling and eliminating the slowed-down bottlenecks from Boston to Springfield. And in New York City, the new Tappan Zee bridge is slated to open in 2018, replacing a crumbling, rickety bridge built more than 60 years ago and only designed to last 50.
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These are all projects designed to streamline our roads, yes, but they’re also a reflection of our love of the automobile.
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These are all projects designed to streamline our roads, yes, but they’re also a reflection of our love of the automobile. Americans and their roads are forever linked, forever in love with each other. And if we’re going to continue our affair with the open road, we’ll need to take care of them. Because with our 21st-century roads come rising standards for our cars.
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Since 1971, Americans have been hitting the road more and more, minus a dip during the Great Recession. And yet the average fuel economy of our cars has increased alongside our miles: in 2015, we saw an average of 25.5 miles per gallon. Thanks to CAFE standards, designed to improve our fuel economy every year, our carmakers are churning out more fuel-efficient cars. It’s no surprise that the Toyota Prius became a mainstream hit. And anything that can improve our fuel economy to an EPA-estimated 133 MPGe, as in the all-new Prius Prime, will reinforce our love affair with the road.
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New roads, new cars, new tires, and less gas. That seems like the future of our own private love affair with the open road that’s somewhere out there, beckoning to us, taking us to cities worth visiting and bridges and toll roads worth crossing. No matter which candidate you voted for, you can take solace in the idea that our love affair with the road still has great merit.
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