“We don’t know the magnitude of what that will be, precisely,” Orr said. “But it will certainly be very steep.”

Road work currently under way shouldn’t be affected. But future work could be curtailed – and the effect may not be short-lived. One precedent: Orr said it took nearly seven years for vehicle miles traveled to reach pre-recession levels after the Great Recession of 2008.

Local officials hope the federal government will step in with an infrastructure spending bill – something that's been discussed since the beginning of the Trump administration but has not materialized.

So far, the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic has not included aid for general state and local government operations. But ARC officials say Congress could begin working on an infrastructure bill this summer.