Unless we all suddenly decide to give up our cars, taking care of our roads and bridges is going to be a significant shared expense for the foreseeable future. As with most things, when it comes to roads and bridges, it’s cheaper to take care of the existing infrastructure than it is to replace it after it falls into disrepair.

Unless we all suddenly decide to give up our cars, taking care of our roads and bridges is going to be a significant shared expense for the foreseeable future.



As with most things, when it comes to roads and bridges, it’s cheaper to take care of the existing infrastructure than it is to replace it after it falls into disrepair.



According to an Associated Press report, it costs roughly $50,000 a mile to perform routine roadway maintenance while it costs nearly $1 million a mile to rebuild a failed roadway.



Essential projects grow far more expensive with each passing year. For example, the I-93 expansion in New Hampshire now being funded in part through a 4 cent increase in the gas tax would have cost $35 million when it was first proposed in the 1980s. Today it will cost $800 million.



While common sense dictates that it would be better to spend $50,000 a mile than $1 million per mile, and that it’s better to spend $35 million than $800 million on I-93, common sense is not the driving force in our political discussion these days. You simply can’t get politicians to acknowledge that in order to pay for road and bridge improvements we need to raise more money through some tax, toll or fee.

Rather, we fool ourselves into thinking that it’s possible to do massive public works projects without any increase in taxes, tolls or fees. This fantasy thinking has resulted in 1,600 miles of failing state roads in New Hampshire out of a total of 4,600 miles. Nearly a third of our roads are designated “poor.”



In New Hampshire we have 147 state bridges and 350 municipal bridges that are “red-listed,” meaning they have structural flaws or are functionally obsolete. Maine officials say the state needs about $119 million more just to meet basic maintenance needs.



One part of the problem is that the federal government has slowly and steadily reduced the amount of federal highway funding it is sending to the states. Both New Hampshire and Maine have seen federal funding decline by 4.9 percent over the past five years, according to the Associated Press.



But the states have been reluctant to ask their citizens to contribute significantly more money toward upkeep of roads, highways and bridges. New Hampshire deserves praise for raising its gas tax 4 cents a gallon last year to 23.8 cents per gallon (excluding the federal 18.4 cents a gallon tax), but this at a time when gas prices are still down more than $1 a gallon over the past 12 months. Maine’s state gas tax is 30 cents and despite an enormous backlog of road and bridge work in the massive state, Gov. Paul LePage refuses to consider an increase. In fact, in 2011 he unhitched the gas tax from the inflation rate, so now, with each passing year, its purchasing power decreases.

Setting aside the danger of driving on faulty roads and bridges, transportation officials estimate that vehicle damage per driver is $330 a year. Again, it would be less expensive for each of us to pay a few more cents per gallon in gas taxes than to pay for major vehicle repairs.



Hopefully, as the public begins to realize that postponing infrastructure work is costing us money, we’ll begin electing officials who take a grown-up approach to paying for this work instead of electing those who assure us we can have everything we want without paying for it.