What is wrong with our roads? The real question is, what is not wrong with our roads? The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave our roads a “D” grade. According to the ASCE, one in nine of the bridges in our nation have a weak structure. Political leaders, along with the citizens of our nation agree that the transport infrastructure of America is going down.
Annually, it isn’t a secret that 3.5 million drivers travel 279 billion miles crossing highways, bridges, and tunnels that are not structured stable enough.
On the daily, about 70 percent of the nation’s freight is moved by about 32 million trucks. The freight makes up all the materials cities, towns, and states need to survive. These goods range from medical supplies to food. Without these items, the survival of our national would be very difficult in some cases almost impossible. In other words, the instability of our roads goes beyond affecting only people on the road. If our infrastructure fails then a huge threat is presented not only to the trucking industry but to all of America.
Taking all this into consideration, Trucking Moves America Forward (TMAF) has joined Infrastructure Week this year. During Infrastructure Week, various groups come together and dedicate themselves to rebuilding the roads, bridges, rails, ports, airports, pipes and power grids of America. The theme this year is #TimeToBuild. Spreading this message and getting more people to support the cause is also where this team’s dedication lays in.
How lovely is 5’o clock traffic, especially in Los Angeles and New York City? Most may agree that it is not lovely at all. Road congestion is one of the symptoms of having a poor infrastructure. The trucking industry brings in an annual revenue of $726.4 billion to the economy, last year alone traffic became a reason for them the waste $50 billion dollars. This amount of course impacts the economy of our nation greatly. As noted by several of our nations lawmakers “American businesses pay $27 billion a year in extra freight transportation costs, increasing shipping delays and raising prices on everyday products” and this is only because of the condition our roads are in.
If we do nothing and allow our nation’s infrastructure to keep deteriorating, our nation’s economy will see a damaging loss of 1 million jobs and $1 trillion decrease in GDP. Poor pavement and bridge conditions alone will cost the economy about $58 billion per year, this is not including the damage that will be done to our economy because of highway congestion which amounts to a quarter billion dollars.
The time is now, not tomorrow, not next year, now. We need to invest and build.
