The adoption of electric vehicles is growing in the United States, with all-electric vehicle sales increasing by 85% from 2020 to 2021 and plug-in hybrid sales rising 138%. This is a welcome trend for many, but the increased popularity of EVs combined with better fuel efficiency, and a gas tax that hasn’t been raised in thirty years, is posing a major challenge to policy makers; how to make up for lost gas tax revenue, which currently pays for 29% of state highway funds and 84% at the federal level.
maintenance
Aligning priorities across agencies
Government agencies sometimes face the criticism that they have difficulty coordinating between various silos. In the transportation sector this may stem, in part, from the historic approach of separating modes into different funding, maintenance, and development streams. While barriers still exist, some agencies are developing coherent multimodal policy to combat this. In other cases incoherence can occur when different segments of the same network fall under the jurisdiction of different agencies, each with its own priorities and maintenance approaches.
Keeping roads and bridges intact requires widespread support
One out of every five miles of road in the U.S. is in poor condition and less than half are rated as “good,” and their condition is just getting worse. Transportation agencies in some states have committed to turning things around by prioritizing maintenance in their spending plans.
Voters across the political spectrum want better transportation options and improved transit
Polling data collected in November and released in March show voters want better transportation options across geographic and party lines. The results indicate that a majority of voters wish they had alternatives to driving, support improving public transit, and want government to fix existing roads before building new ones. While COVID-19 has upended daily life, the results help paint a picture of the transportation system Americans want to see.
Invisible women
Research and design are based on a test case human who stands in for the broader population. The default human that is the basis for research and design projects is usually a white adult male. As a result, projects often come to conclusions that do not address the needs of women, and some that are outright dangerous. Transportation projects and priorities are not immune to this bias.
A new technique to identify deteriorating infrastructure using satellite data
With budgets that tend to favor new construction, many DOTs are finding it necessary to prioritize the most urgent repairs. But infrastructure decay is not always easily visible. And deferred or inadequate maintenance may occasionally have catastrophic consequences for U.S. bridges, 40 percent of which are at least 50 years old, and 9.1 percent of which are considered structurally deficient. A new remote sensing methodology may make the job of decay detection easier, and possibly more accurate.
State DOT officials discuss how to prioritize repair
Transportation for America and Taxpayers for Common Sense has released Repair Priorities 2019, a new report analyzing pavement conditions, state spending trends, and unmet repair needs nationwide. The report indicates that pavement conditions are getting worse, contributing to a growing gap nationally between current investments in repair and unmet needs. At the same time, some states continue to invest in expanding roads, further increasing that backlog. The authors also hosted a webinar to roll out the report. Speakers included staff from DOTs that are prioritizing repair with available funding despite the challenges. Those challenges often include significant political pressure to direct funds toward new capacity projects instead of repair projects that cause backups and inconvenience to drivers.
Smartphone app promises crowdsourced road roughness index and fuel efficient routing
The ability of smartphones to collect reams of data is significantly expanding crowdsourcing opportunities. An accelerometer is used by smartphones to change screen orientation or count footfalls, among other uses. But it is also capable of recording very small movements 100 times per second. A new app developed by researchers associated with the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub is harnessing this flood of data to measure road roughness in a way that could have far-reaching effects.
Better timing for seasonal load restrictions with connected sensors
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, have developed a new way to monitor the underground sensors that help states determine when seasonal load restrictions should begin and end.
New Jersey DOT: no more roadway expansions
New Jersey’s newly appointed Department of Transportation Commissioner announced the agency will pursue a ‘fix-it-first’ mindset toward transportation spending. “The days of system expansion in New Jersey are long over, we don’t have the funds,” he said. “The focus is on the new status quo, paving, repairing deficient bridges, fixing potholes.”