This is a vicious cycle.

The worse roads get, the more vehicles are built to dampen out the noise and roughness, which makes vehicles heavier, which damages roads more.

There's actually a fairly substantial environmental impact to having roads in poor condition overall. In extreme cases, look what can happen in cases like we just saw in Montreal.

raise the gas tax.

$383 per person is a fortune. There's got to be at least 1/3 of Americans driving cars, which means 100 million drivers. $383 * 100 mil = $38 billion a YEAR. They project a shortfall of $138 bil by ($76+138) $214 billion by the year 2022. Quick math tells us that's only about $14 billion/yr. So if we could spend the $14 billion a year, it would save $38 billion a year in repairs.

The viscious cycle is one of taxation, really. The worse roads get, the more heavily you have to be taxed to repair them. However, the worse the roads are, the more damage your vehicle suffers and thus the less money you have to pay your taxes. If you asked me, this is just a scheme to grow the government more and declare that it was needed in order to repair roads.

So let's get this straight. We have spent over $400 BILLION on Iraq to get our oil that's under their sand. We have 2 wars going with the biggest tax cut for the ultra rich in history. Now we can't afford to maintain our infrastructure let alone update it. We have given the fossil fuel industry almost $100 Million day in free grants and tax breaks as the 'Energy Security Act". Mecicare and Social Security have been raided as well as the National Debt. hitting record levels, and now due process has benn flushed down the toilet.

God am I glad Goerge W. Bush STOLE the White House what a Christian Patriot. People wanted change. What an improvement! Thank God climate change is a liberal farse!

In the Boston area there are constant repairs that immediately begin to deteriorate. The big dig is the largest example of government paying top dollar for fraudulent construction.

During the big dig a private company put in an exit ramp for a golf course they were building.It was completed in a couple of months.Similar work in a gov project would take a year.I could write ten pages on shoddy/fraudulent road repai projects off the top of my head.Get one job done on time and on budget and then I will listen to studies like this one.

I'm sorry; a scheme to grow the government more? Oh, God, do I laugh or do I cry? If anything it strikes me as the end result of ever lower tax rates, the mantra of every GOP candidate in every election at every level. We built up a great.. well, pretty good, infrastructure in this country over the years and now we're coasting on it. Roads, sewers, water treatment, schools, you name it, all crumbling while the party in charge calls for smaller government and lower taxes.

So, the next obvious step is for the party in charge to point out that "high" taxes have led to crumbling roads, hence it's time to privatize them. Because we all know there's no waste or fraud in private industry; just look at how well the rebuilding of Iraq is going.

What many don't know: In the past it was against our laws to use gas taxes for anything except road construction and maintainance.

The current cabel of crooks changed all that. Now they can use our gas taxes to feed pork to themselves and their "campaign contributors".

jw: You are right.

Roads, streets, bridges and overpasses have been so neglected all over the Quebec province for the last 30+ years that more failures like the broken overpass on Highway No. 19 in Laval 2 days ago will multiply in the years to come unless something is done quickly. Lets hope that this will be a wake-up call.

The reason for this situation is that less than 10% of the fuel taxes are being used to build and/or repair roads and associated structures. Registration fees are used to support the government car insurance scheme.

There are no road funds and the government funds allocated to maintenance of existing roads have been insufficient for decades.

All fuel taxes should go into a secured road funds. If revenues from fuel taxes + registration fees are not sufficient to build and maintain roads to high standards, they should be increased accordingly. Let us (drivers) pay for road + street building-maintenance cost.

Mark:
You hit the nail on the head -- privatize. It is the logical next step. After all, "no new taxes" and "the Government is incompetent" lines have been drilled into everyone's heads, so privatization is the only option. Maybe the oil companies (or OPEC) will buy the roads and put tolls on them. Then they can buy our schools and charge big bucks for them, too. And then....

The main reason fr the problem happens to be an influx of very pro mass transit poeple into local and stae govs and a resultant bleeding of money away from roads and into mass transit.

A typical bus now costs 1 million bucks and a typical major city has thosands of such busses.

And america has alot of such cities.

To make matters worse as the roads have not been expanded the number of cars on certain choke points has gone far beyond talerances. This results in huge numbers of accidents and huge inceases in wear and tear on the roads.

It also doesnt help that huge amounts of funds are boondoggled away in porkbarrel projectc both on the left and right and center and celing and floor and every corner and even hovering in mid air;/

And schools have sucked up huge amounts of funds to pay teachers more and more.. without result.

And we spent a few billion to win a war and a a few hundred billion to not feeel bad about beating the crap outa iraq.

Tuchy feeling liberal crap. We should have just told em flat out if you EVER mess with oil again we will murder you... But on the bright side all the military funding has resulted in alot of EFFECTIVE new toys to kill with and we actauly have experienced soldiers and a useful armed forces around just before a world war breaks out unlike the last 2 times...

But then again if we did repair all the roads we would just have to do it again after ww3.

I think the editor needs to avoid news pieces about non-technolgy items such as road maintainance.
It only allows people to deride our war against the Islamofacistleprechauns.

Wintermane, you don't really believe we can murder people for oil do you? Did you ever serve in the Armed Forces? If so were you ever activated to go to war for oil? Have you had children that kill and be killed for oil?
As for public transit a bad thing? When was the last time you were in Manhattan and saw the filled busses and subway trains? There is no way it is a bad thing it just reduces the overburden of our infrastructure that you speak of!

Incase you forgot 911 was and is payback for George Bush semiors oil whore war: Desert Storm. Am I glad this country learned wisdom. HUGH P.T.S.D. on a national scale led us into Iraq with fear hate and lies paving the way. Ignorance towards other peoples on the other side of the globe is just that, IGNORANCE and it breeds hatered against us as a global bully.

I live in New England and if China massed troups in Quebec to invade and kill us to steal their resources under our feet I would want to kill them to. How do you think the hatered towards us grows in the Middle East? We will leave Iraq defeated with media spin B.S. saying otherwise, declare victory and get the hell out with no stable puppet regeim to follow. It will be a blood bath!

Hew if you see that as cool or tough or whatever then send your family over there and raise your right hand to take the oath. I did and Tyrants that ruin a democracy are the enemy! Boy did we go from a rhodes scholar to a lying murdering oil whore that is trashing our country. 2008 yet?

This has a lot to do with GreenCars. If the roads get rough, buy a big SUV and you can roll over the pot holes.

The main reason fr the problem happens to be an influx of very pro mass transit poeple into local and stae govs and a resultant bleeding of money away from roads and into mass transit.

Really? Please show the actual fiscal impacts of transit on roads. Numbers, not rhetoric, please.

OK, the anti-Bush hysteria coming forth on this is pretty funny. The original article points out that the percentage of 'substandard or poor' roads was 23% (a 3% difference over today) in 1999 when the Dear Leader was still in the White House. What was the excuse then?

It's after threads like this that I marvel at the ability of Humans to habitate the same rock in space yet still live on different planets.

Mathew it's called vision. It takes wisdom and understanding not just greed.

Not only do vehicles become heavier for sound deadening purposes (excarbating wear and tear on the roads) but they are also beginning to implement "low noise" pavement. These more expensive low noise sections of road have a nasty tendency to wear out faster than standard pavement.

Let the roads go to hell. And as they return to dirt, start filling in the gaps with light rail and bicycle paths. If the existing roads were turned over to bicycles, tricycles, pedestrians, and extremely light vehicles, if any, just think how much longer they would last.

Let the bleeding continue until there is no blood left. Car dominated cities are a menace to society and the planet, and as we have seen, incredibly expensive to boot. By all means, keep the roads going to cities, but once you reach the city one should be encouraged and eventually required to get out of one's car.

Let's figure out how to move people and goods, not vehicles.

Last saturday afternoon 5 people died and 6 people where injured when a highway overpass collapsed on highway 19 in Laval near Montreal. We pay a LOT of taxes on gaz for road maintenance but the problem is that a lot of the money is siphoned off by the goverment to fund other expenses. No company in the world could legally do the same thing and not be sued...
With the level of taxation we have there is no excuse for poor maintenance of our infrastructures...

Can we blame GWB for the deteriorating roads in Canada?

At least a little bit?

JRod.

Optimistic figures and government inaction has led to projects in my neck of the woods being listed as around $6Billion originally but coming in closer to $9Billion now.

Not to mention when the workers for every cement company all went on strike locally(they went on strike for the right to honor picket lines and strikes by other unions) we lost several million dollars in ballooning costs as the projects failed to be completed on time(and many sub-contractors were laid off during that time).

Tonychilling,
Roads are part of how we use automobiles. There is no way around this fact. Plus, this site is called Green Car Congress.
_
Tripp,
Exactly, the current federal tax levied on gasoline and diesel Do Not cover the current expendatures Interstate Highway system. Half comes from borrowing (Treasury Bonds), and the gas tax is the other half. Raise both gasoline and diesel to $0.37 a gallon. Incentives for more efficient autos, and breaks for those who need their big vehicles to make a living, should be included. Spending should also follow the "more/most bang for your buck" philosophy. Rebuilding the existing highways should recieve priority over new highway miles. Later on, some might be funneled to new initiatives that increase vehicles utilization efficiency, ie. car pooling.
_Another point is a variable consumption tax should be put in place. Its purpose is to prevent gas from dropping below $1.75/ga regular (retail), one that declines and then disappears when gas hits $2.50-$3.00/ga regular. This is to keep cheap gas prices from killing renewables in their embryonic stage. It is also there to discourage consumers from buying/using inefficient vehicles, and inefficient/wasteful consumption. Going the way of Europe and getting vehicle fuel taxes in the $2-3 + 25% range is far off for now, but it may be a way to cut the deficit. A 20% imported fuel/oil tax/tariff would be another far off, but interesting possibility.
_On a sidenote, re-engining older (5-9+yrs) cars/trucks with better powerplants would be one incentive initiative for those who can not afford a spanking new Escape, Civic, or Prius hybrids. $7,000 from Federal ($700), State ($300), and personal sources ($6,000) could do it.
_All this will take Political Capital and Guts.

JRod thanks for the great laugh, I needed that. And sure blame the Oil Whore for canadian roads why not he blames 911 on Clinton when it was daddies fault.

With never freezing temps and no salt, how did all CA cities manage to get in the top ten? Every time Im out there its add a lane or upgrade this or rebuild that from earthquake damage. There is already too many drivers and too much road.
Whos doing these studies? Chicago doesnt rate? And how does that Fed Hwy Trust Fund get divied again?
Btw all for increased fuel taxes to pour even more concrete and lay more steel...but lets level the toll booths. Toll roads ensure "competing" roads get less funding.