Across the United States, state and local governments spend roughly half a trillion dollars on transportation and water infrastructure annually. Approximately one-quarter of that is paid for through grants from the federal government. It seems like a lot of money, but it isn’t enough to keep pace with the ever-expanding backlog of necessary maintenance and repairs to our aging infrastructure.
So how did we get to this point? And where do we go from here?
Let’s rewind to the 1980s- a turning point for infrastructure investment. With the decline in spending post the ’70s highway expansion, a significant gap opened, challenging us to meet the growing demand for repairs and maintenance.
While we (sadly) can’t jump aboard a time machine and go back to warn others of the impending gap, we CAN leverage our knowledge of the challenges faced by municipal agencies today while posturing justifiable and defensible data in a way that makes an actual impact to the communities we serve.
Here are some actual, real-world examples of the impact our work has had in communities across the country:
📣Transitioning Lawton, Oklahoma from windshield surveys to automated surveys with analyses and City Council presentation that helped them secure an increase in annual maintenance funding from $1.5M to 4.5M and a one-time investment of $60M to improve infrastructure over the next ten years.
📣Helping the City of Long Beach, California to assess the impact of bond initiatives and explore solutions for providing more equitable pavement M&R funding allocation across their districts.
📣Performing pavement funding analyses for the City of Issaquah, Washington that resulted in a budget increase of 200% and renewed support by the City Council for the pavement management program.
📣Assisting the City of Prescott, Arizona in increasing their annual pavement M&R budget from $5.5M to more than $8.5M by forecasting the impacts of several funding scenarios.
📣Assisting the City of Pasco, Washington in applying for a federal grant for pavement funding that was based on four criteria: proactive use of preventative maintenance, sustainable solutions, pavement condition scores, and roughness measurements. Curious how IMS can help you maximize your budget, increase funding, and plan for safer, properly maintained infrastructure? Contact us today! We’d love to hear about your current challenges and talk about how we can help you overcome them.
