Equipment World Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/285780
April 2014 | EquipmentWorld.com 74 final word | by Kirk Landers O ther than Congress' long-running unwillingness to fund highways adequately, the greatest factor in the decline of heavy construc- tion work in the road market has been the shift in road management strategy from "worst first" – prioritizing the rehabili- tation of failing pavements – to prevention strategies that gave priority to keeping sound pavements in good shape. Economically, the shift made all the sense in the world. A highway department could pro- duce many more miles of good, healthy pave- ment by emphasizing well-timed, low-dollar maintenance interventions compared to big-dol- lar investments in pavement reconstruction. Politically, the tidal shift to preventive main- tenance has had both negative and positive repercussions. On the positive side, in an era chronic underfunding, the maintenance strat- egy is the only rational course of action. It has preserved many thousands of miles of pave- ment that might otherwise today be in poor or borderline condition and in need of expensive rehabilitation interventions. On the negative side, the success of our preventive maintenance strategy has helped to diminish the awareness of the public and our political leaders of how the national pave- ment inventory is deteriorating. That reality has contributed to a lack of urgency in Congress to address the looming financial failure of the Highway Trust Fund, and the gradual erosion of the overall condition of our roads. One set of metrics that illustrate the dilemma comes from the recently released Federal Highway Administration study, "2013 Status of the Nation's Highways, Bridges, and Transit Conditions & Performance." Among the many fascinating data points in this MAP-21 mandat- ed report come two that illustrate clearly what happens over time when you can only afford to maintain good pavements and you can't af- ford to improve declining pavements. From the year 2000 to 2010, the percentage of vehicle miles traveled on "Good" pavements (International Roughness Index, or IRI, less than 95) increased from 42.8 percent to 50.6 percent. At the same time, the percentage of vehicle miles traveled on "Acceptable" pavements (IRI less than 170) decreased from 85.5 percent to 82.0 percent. An interesting side note here: The sharpest declines in "Acceptable" pave- ments come in rural roads (from 93.8 percent in 2000 to 87.8 percent in 2010), the statistical implication being that high-usage urban roads are getting more priority in times of severely limited funds. While this may seem rational in some ways, it isn't in others: rural roads historically have produced a disproportionate number of highway fatalities and have been the focus of an FHWA-orchestrated safety ef- fort. Deteriorating pavements can't help make rural roads safer. The FHWA report (available at http://www. fhwa.dot.gov/policy/2013cpr/overviews.htm#3h) was issued in March at around the same time the Obama Administration released a budget proposal that offered a four-year transportation budget with a 19 percent increase in federal highway funds. Since the Administration's proposal included new revenues from corpo- rate tax reforms, it seems unlikely to find much traction in the tax-adverse House, though fis- cally responsible fiscal conservatives might do well to dwell on the hidden, but real, costs of letting our pavements continue to erode. The hidden cost of success