PROVIDENCE – “Rhode Island lacks adequate funding to complete needed road and bridge repairs and improvements,” according to a report released today by the Washington, D.C.-based transportation research group TRIP.
Over the next five years, from 2008 through 2013, the R.I. Department of Transportation (DOT) estimates it will need $2.76 billion “to significantly improve road, highway and bridge conditions,” according to the TRIP report – entitled “Rhode Island’s Crucial Links: The Current Condition and Funding of the State’s Roads and Bridges,” prepared by in cooperation with the DOT – “However, RIDOT estimates that less than $1.5 billion will be available during that time,” leaving a shortfall of nearly $1.3 billion.
The state is not alone in confronting such difficulties. The United States is a first-class country with a “third-class infrastructure,” Bruce Katz, director of The Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program told local leaders at Grow Smart Rhode Island’s Power of Place Summit this May. (READ MORE)
But already, about half of Rhode Island’s 772 state, municipal and local bridges 20 feet or longer are considered inadequate, TRIP noted in its report: 21 percent are deemed “deficient” by the DOT, while another 29 percent are “structurally obsolete.” And under current funding expectations, the group said, “DOT estimates the number of bridges in need of significant repair or replacement will increase by 10 percent by 2013.”
Meanwhile, more than a quarter of the state’s 1,100 miles of major roads are currently classed as “failed” (10 percent) or “poor” (16 percent). Driving on those roads costs Rhode Island motorists an estimated $360 million per year – $482 per driver – in extra vehicle repair and maintenance costs, TRIP said.
“It is critical that Rhode Island find the resources to develop and maintain a transportation system that can carry the state into the 21st century,” Will Wilkins, TRIP’s executive director, said in a statement today. “Further deterioration of the state’s roads, highways and transit system will diminish quality of life in Rhode Island and hinder economic development.”
The urgency is even greater because “the life cycle of Rhode Island’s roads is greatly affected by the state’s ability to perform timely maintenance and upgrades … reconstructing roads coasts approximately four times more than resurfacing them,” the report states.
“A well-maintained, safe and free-flowing highway system is critical to the state’s ability to accommodate future growth safely and efficiently,” the TRIP report states, affecting both trade and tourism.
DOT Director Michael P. Lewis echoed that conclusion: “Without adequate funding, Rhode Island’s transportation system is stuck on a dead-end street,” he said in a statement today. “A sound infrastructure is crucial to safety, mobility, and economic vitality … what DOT does touches everyone,” Lewis added.
Additional information about road and bridge projects across the state is available from the R.I. Department of Transportation at www.RhodeWork.com.
TRIP, founded in 1971, is a nonprofit transportation research group based in Washington, D.C. More information, including the group’s full 16-page report on Rhode Island roads, bridges and transportation funding, is available at www.TripNet.org.