Inmost Northeast and Midwest cities the past winter has left roadsand bridges a pockmarked mess of ruts and crevices… Crews couldn'tkeep up with all the potholes they needed to fill and now stop gap asphalt plugs are crumbling apart as summer quicklyapproaches. State and local budgets also cannot make duewithout help from Washington—the federal Highway Trust Fundcontinues to provide insufficient revenues since Congress refusesto raise the gas tax, which supports this primary wellspring forfunding local transportation infrastructure. The tax hasn't beenincreased since 1993 and hasn't been supplemented by any othermeaningful source of public works budgeting as costs and needs havespiraled for repairing ageing roads as well as funding newinfrastructure including mass transit.

Increasingly states enter into various formsof highly-touted public private partnerships (PPPs) to build arelative handful of new road and bridge projects, funded inevitablyeither by tolls, fees or yes higher state and local (sales, income,gas) taxes to meet debt service on bonds or other financingschemes, which will extend well into the future. But these PPPstypically do not address the ongoing and increasingly dauntingmaintenance needs for existing systems. Many highways built in thepost World War II era across the country now require significantoverhauls—not just pavement patching.

So that gets us back to our potholed roads,which not only wreak havoc on wheels, axels, and undercarriages,but also present real safety concerns to drivers. And the situationworsens incrementally year over year, augmenting congestion andincreasing the chances for road closures and major disruptions.