The Good Roads Our Counties Need

This article is from the July issue of County Progress.

As president of the National Association of Counties and Wise County Judge, J.D. Clark is advocating for federal funding for local roads.

Clark said, as Congress debates a new surface transportation bill, it is time to set funding formulas that reflect needs on the ground.

Picture a grain elevator in rural Missouri on a harvest morning, a line of loaded semi-snakes back a quarter mile.

Each loaded truck then travels county roads to reach the rail silo, the barge, and the world market.

The farmer's margin, already thin, depends on that road holding under 80,000 pounds of corn.

Now picture that road after a wet spring with a frost heave crack running shoulder to center line.

The county engineer knows it needs work.

It has been an issue for years, but the budget math no longer works.

This is not a story about one county road, but rather about the heart of the American economy and who is responsible for keeping it intact.

And it is the story behind why I am working with counties across America to ensure that, as Congress works through the next surface transportation reauthorization bill, counties have access to the federal funding needed to invest in the infrastructure our country has always relied on.

Counties own and maintain 44% of all public road miles and more than 229,000 bridges on the National Bridge Inventory.

Many people mistakenly believe these are all two-lane rural roads, but that's simply not the case anymore, especially in fast-growing areas.

And even where county-owned roads are two lanes, they are critical to our economic competitiveness.

They help connect farms to markets, plants to ports, and families to jobs.

Nearly every trip in America, whether moving people or freight, begins and ends on a locally owned road.

We have always managed infrastructure on lean budgets, but every year the math seems to get more difficult.

Leaders in Oswego County, New York, have said the budget that once covered paving 40 miles of road now only covers 10.

The same is true of bridge costs.

Rebuilding a small county-owned bridge in Minnesota cost $1.5 million in 2019.

Today, it would cost $2.4 million at least.

Most states impose restrictions on counties' revenue authority, meaning we cannot simply raise additional funding to make up the difference.

Instead, important projects get delayed, pared back, or canceled altogether.

Maintaining a strong, safe, and efficient transportation system requires coordination and partnership among all levels of government.

I'll use a personal example.