Analysis shows nearly $1B additional dollars needed to maintain local roads and bridges

(INDIANA CAPITAL CHRONICLE) — A shortfall of $2.4 billion. That’s how much more analysts estimate Indiana would need to eliminate poorly rated local roads and bridges across the state over the next ten years. 

The gap for preserving current conditions or improving conditions is less, at $987 million and $1.8 billion, respectively. And none of those numbers include the amount of dollars local units of governments would need to pitch in nor does it include any road projects that would add capacity.

The numbers come from the Local Technical Assistance Program, a partnership with state government and Purdue University. Jennifer Sharkey, a lead research engineer with the organization, presented those findings before the Funding Indiana’s Roads for a Stronger, Safer Tomorrow Task Force Tuesday afternoon.

“What we did was to look at what would it take to improve these facilities in the future. These future road funding investments were estimated, but we did not include added capacity projects — projects that add turn lanes, widen the roadway or add travel lanes,” Sharkey said. “Also, we did not include new infrastructure. So new road corridors or new bridge structures that might be utilized to facilitate growth and development in our local communities. We only look at the existing network and its existing configuration.” 

The task force is examining future funding sources for state and local infrastructure as fuel efficiency and electrification of vehicles have eroded the current funding. 

Much of Indiana’s current road funding model comes from gas taxes, which are expected to fall in the future as more people adopt electric or hybrid vehicles. Additionally, with better fuel efficiency standards, Americans will need to purchase less gas. 

Other states have implemented alternative taxes to make up that difference, such as taxing delivery vehicles, toll roads or annual road use fees.  

Sharkey dissected the types of roads across the state — 90% asphalt for cities and towns compared to 56% asphalt for counties — and reported conditions of those roadways. Across 430 cities and towns as well as all 92 counties, the group found that 28% of roads earned a “good” condition rating. 

But while 41% of roads were fair in cities and towns, counties reported that 46% of their roads earned that rating — with the latter placing a heavier emphasis on improving the busiest roads while the former concentrated on all road types equally. 

In the poor category, 31% of city and town roads earned that rating while 27% of county roads did, meaning that 28% of roads are in poor condition statewide. 

Fixing poor roads costs more, between $150,000 to $1.5 million per mile compared to $1,000 to $7,500 per mile for roads in good condition — according to numbers shared by Sharkey.

Costs to fix

Road preservation, the cheapest plan of action, would reduce the percentage of roads with a poor rating to 20% statewide, “but falls short of adequately addressing failed road facilities,” the presentation said.

“The first strategy we looked at aims to preserve the improvements that have been made since the previous infrastructure influx of funding … (and) looks to add more years of life to the network than is lost,” Sharkey said. 

In order to continue improving Indiana’s roads, the percentage of poor roads would be reduced to 10% after a decade and target failed roads earlier than in the previous strategy. The last plan LTAP analyzed was the cost to completely eliminate such roads throughout the state.

Roads alone across the three plans would cost $1.2 billion, $2 billion or $2.7 billion, respectively, with an added $35 million to address unpaved county roads. 

Bridges, defined as structures that span 20 or more feet, would add more to the bottom line. Smaller crossways and culverts aren’t included in this calculation. 

Sharkey revealed that the average age of a local bridge in Indiana is 46 years but that 16% of the local bridge network is over 70, which is considered to be the end of a bridge’s lifespan. 

Over half, or 55%, of Indiana’s bridges are in “fair” condition, while 40% are in good condition. The remaining 5% are in poor condition. 

LTAP estimates that 3,109 bridges would need to be replaced while another 598 bridges could be rehabilitated. The remaining bridges could be preserved with something as simple as a thin polymer overlay treatment. 

Combined, that need comes in at $580 million. 

Since 2013, local units of government have received $575 more in state generated, dedicated funds — with $225 million attributed to the Community Crossings matching grant program. Municipalities can generate more revenue by adopting cumulative bridge taxes or wheel taxes and excise surtaxes, also known as the Local Option Highway User Tax. 

In 2022, counties collected $122 million in these taxes, short of the maximum $458 million LTAP calculated they could collect.

Speaking as a commissioner from Crawford County, committee member John Frey said that increasing taxes on the local end wouldn’t be enough. 

“Maxing out the wheel tax for a small population county is not much money, Frey said.

Currently, cities and towns as well as counties fall short with these dedicated funds and dollars from the state. To meet the need, local governments turn to their general funds. 

“Over half of the reported local street and highway department receipts ($1.58 billion) in (fiscal year) 2023 came from ‘other local funds,’” the report summarized.

A future iteration of the report would include a county-by-county breakdown, authors said.

The Association of Indiana Counties provided an example, using Elkhart County’s fund receipts.

According to the organization, the county got a combined $8 million from the Motor Vehicle Highway Fund and $2.7 million from the Local Road and Street fund — all state dollars. The state also gave a grant of $1 million and the county secured a $1.1 million federal grant. 

Local dedicated funding streams for cumulative bridge taxes and wheel taxes came to $1.1 million and $3 million, respectively.

That combined $17 million still had to be supplemented with an additional $10 million in “other local funds,” as presented by Ryan Hoff. 

“While the investment that the legislature provided in 2017 absolutely helped to (improve) road conditions, we have now reached a point where the increased costs are causing counties to have to defer projects,” he said.

In 2017, the state indexed the gas tax to increase annually, providing stable funding that increased for years and helped municipalities with funding needs. But Hoff said such funding hasn’t kept pace with inflation and road conditions in counties like Elkhart are falling.