Playing The Cards You’re Dealt. (When They’re Not Very Good)

This article describes how some city road managers cope with diminishing budgets. With stimulus money slowing to a trickle and local tax revenues still sagging, the author of this article interviewed a cross-section of city road managers to find out what they are doing with the funds they have available. With the federal transportation program floundering, and state and local tax revenues locked in the throes of the Great Recession, road managers all over the country are struggling to maintain the integrity of pavements and bridges. While major interstates and high-volume freeways get funding priority in times like these, thousands of lane-miles of surface streets in metropolitan areas carry high volumes of traffic and are an essential part of area commerce and lifestyle. And beyond those high-volume roads are residential streets that, though low on the triage scale, have safety, environmental and political implications. Given the sobering reality in rural communities where some paved roads are being returned to gravel due to inadequate funds, the author wondered how their counterparts in urban/suburban America were being managed. To gather some idea of today’s urban road realities, this article engaged a random assortment of city road managers in a series of informal conversations. The bad news is that funds for roads are becoming desperately inadequate in many places, and there is an air of uncertainty almost everywhere due to the absence of a long-term federal program and chronic weakness in tax revenues at all levels of government. The good news is that it’s not all bad news. Some city governments are finding reason, and resources, to pursue aggressive road programs. And even in cities where road funds have atrophied badly, road managers are employing new strategies and tactics to protect the public’s investment in road infrastructure until the Great Recession gives way to the Great Recovery.

• Record URL:
  • http://www.betterroads.com/highway-contractor-14/
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/oclc/1519687
• Authors:
  • Landers, Kirk
• Publication Date: 2011-7

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Figures;
• Pagination: pp 8-9, 11-13, 15
• Serial:
  • Better Roads
  • Volume: 81
  • Issue Number: 7
  • Publisher: James Informational Media, Incorporated
  • ISSN: 0006-0208
  • Serial URL: http://www.betterroads.com

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Budgeting; Financial analysis; Highway safety; Recession; Revenues; Taxes; Traffic volume; Uncertainty
• Uncontrolled Terms: Economic stimulus
• Subject Areas: Administration and Management; Finance; Highways;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01349433
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Aug 10 2011 10:42AM