Why Aren’t U.S. Roads Getting the Repairs They Need?
The American Society of Civil Engineers has passed its judgment on the current state of the United States’ roads – and it wasn’t pretty. The report gave the roads a “D” grade, reflecting a serious need for improvement. But is that improvement coming? How can the country work to begin addressing critical infrastructure issues like aging roads?
To find out, Voice of B2B Daniel Litwin was joined on this episode of MarketScale TV by James Golden, Founder and CEO of Pavement Management Group. The company leverages “AI systems and high-definition video to produce standardized, objective and cost-effective roadway condition insights and analytics.”
Golden and Litwin discussed why the country hasn’t seen much improvement from the ASCE’s last report in 2017, which graded the entire country’s infrastructure a “D+.” That overall grade rose slightly, but the condition of the country’s roads remained the same. Golden said the report is very accurate and represents genuine non-improvement. So, where do we go from here?
“The challenge, obviously, is dollars and cents,” Golden said. “We don’t have, especially when we look at our public roadway infrastructure … We simply don’t have the funding to [address the backlog]. It’s been a challenge in terms of creating a narrative to take to the public, because how is all this stuff funded? Tax dollars.”