Study: Pennsylvania risks falling behind on rural road and bridge needs

Pennsylvania could fall behind again in the condition of its roads and bridges – especially local road and bridges – unless it provides more money for their upkeep, a national study released Thursday concluded.

The study by TRIP, a nonprofit national transportation research agency, found through 2024 that 66% of the state’s bridges and 49% of roads not on the National Highway System are in either poor or fair condition. Since infrastructure on the national Highway System must maintain certain standards for the state to receive federal funds, those roads tend to receive greater attention and local facilities that don’t have to meet those standards tend to fall behind, Rocky Moretti, TRIP’s director of policy and research, said during a news conference to discuss the findings.

The eight-county area of Western Pennsylvania did slightly better with 65% of bridges in poor or fair condition, but roads did worse with 61% in poor or fair condition.

Pennsylvania ranks in the top five nationally in the number of bridges and miles of roads maintained by the state Department of Transportation.

Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration strongly disagreed with the study’s conclusions, noting that the state improved the highest number of poor bridges in the country in 2023 and has increased transportation funding by several hundred million dollars a year by moving the cost of state police patrols from the state Department of Transportation budget to the general fund, freeing that money for roads and bridges.

Moretti said the state did a good job reducing the number of bridges in poor condition after ranking last or next to last in the country in the early 2000s. But because the state has so many bridges and many of them are older, it always faces the challenge of fixing more bridges than it allows to deteriorate.

“They will begin to see those numbers [of bridges in poor condition] go back up” without additional funding, Moretti said.

The state’s funding shortfall – estimated a few years ago by PennDOT at $800 million a year – has occurred for two reasons, Moretti said: dependence on the gasoline tax and inflation.

The state gets more than 75% of its road and bridge money from one of the country’s highest gasoline taxes, 57.6 cents a gallon. Because of more fuel-efficient vehicles and the growing use of electric vehicles, gas tax revenue isn’t growing as fast as it used to.

Inflation in the construction industry also increased the cost of projects in recent years. The national infrastructure bill pushed through by the Biden administration provided Pennsylvania with about 30% more in federal funds for a five-year period, but construction costs increased by 54% in that time,  Moretti said.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t achieve what we had hoped,” Moretti said. “We really only maintained what we were doing.”

In a statement, PennDOT spokeswoman Alexis Campbell said Shapiro has added $380 million to the budget for roads and bridges in the past two years. As a result, the state improved 900 more miles of roads and paved 800 more miles than the previous two years and improved 174 more bridges than the previous two years.

“Those additional funds have already made a big difference in road and bridge projects,” Campbell said. “The Shapiro administration remains committed to maintaining our infrastructure, and we know more work remains, so we look forward to continued conversations with the General Assembly on how to work together to ensure Pennsylvania’s infrastructure is safe, reliable and efficient.”

The study comes as the state Legislature is in a major budget battle over whether to provide more funding for public transit specifically, as well as funding for roads, bridges, railroads and airports. Transit agencies say they will have to make drastic cuts to service, increase fares and reduce staff because the state’s last transportation bill expired two years ago and emergency federal funding provided during the pandemic has run out.

But Republicans in rural areas say their constituents have a hard time increasing transit funding when 87% of the money goes to agencies in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. The urban areas say their high economic activity generates a lot of the tax money the state uses to pay for public improvements and services across the state so public transit – which gets employees to work — should be important to rural areas, too.

Two officials at the TRIP news conference from rural areas, Robert Carl Jr. of the Schuylkill Chamber of Commerce and Matt Espenshade of the Pennsylvania State Grange, say funding always has been a balancing act for rural and urban counties. They stressed that roads and bridges are especially important for rural counties so farmers and other businesses can get supplies to their operation and ship products efficiently.

Carl said it took several rounds of funding and more than 10 years to improve Route 61 in Schuylkill County, which serves as a major connector between Interstates 81 and 78. In that time, the cost of the project grew from about $60 million to $115 million.

At the same time, he noted that the Schuylkill Transportation Authority provides rides for about 20% of the county’s residents 60 years and older.

“What we are talking about is extremely important for our county,” he said.

Espenshade said having to drive around insufficient roads or bridges with weight limits creates additional costs for farmers who already have a close profit margin.

“Our local governments don’t have the money to make the improvements we need,” he said. “We’re falling behind. We definitely want to make sure the needs of our rural communities aren’t ignored.”