Time to Repair and Restore

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Ronald Reagan has presented Congress with a program to renew American business by encouraging savings and promoting private investment, but the productivity of business rests on the quality of its infrastructure—its network of roads rails, ports and other vital public services. If trains and trucks are slowed by poor tracks and roads, farmers and manufacturers cannot get their products to market on time, and the delay shows up in the prices of everything from soybeans to stereo sets. If city sewers and subways are already strained beyond their limits companies may be reluctant to expand and hire new workers, since they may not be able to get to work. Warns the Council of State Planning Agencies in a disturbing new report entitled America in Ruins: "The deteriorated condition of basic facilities that underpin the economy will prove a critical bottleneck to national economic renewal during this decade unless we can find ways to finance public works. " The worst infrastructure ills:

Highways. In 1956 Congress launched what President Dwight Eisenhower proclaimed to be "the greatest public works program in history": the interstate highway system. Now in its silver anniversary year, the 42,500-mi. network is only 94% finished, but 8,000 miles of pavement are so badly worn that they must be rebuilt. Though the U.S. Government has picked up 90% of the $79 billion tab for interstate construction so far, it has given the states almost no money for maintenance and state legislatures have been slow to provide funds to keep up the highways. To make matters worse, Congress in 1974 lifted the truck weight limit on federal highways from 73,280 lbs. to a concrete-crushing 80,000 lbs. On part of Interstate 90 near Erie, Pa., motorists bouncing over ripples and dodging chuckholes wisely ignore the posted speed limit of 55 m.p.h. in favor of a more sensible 30 m.p.h.

Secondary roads off the interstates are often in much worse shape. In eastern Kentucky, where pockmarked roads suffer a relentless pounding from overloaded coal trucks, drivers bitterly complain that most of their tires blow out before they wear out. The main road between Baton Rouge and Shreveport, La., is so bumpy that freight haulers avoid it by going some 130 miles out of their way through eastern Texas. Says Trucker John Wooley, a former rodeo cowboy: "That road just tears a rig apart. It's like riding a bucking bronco." In California, Highway 101 outside San Jose is full of holes. Says Jon Carroll, a senior editor at New West magazine: "There are many blood alleys in California, but this one leads the parade. An absolutely terrifying driving experience."

Most states rely upon gasoline taxes for maintenance funds but, as the surging price of fuel has forced people to drive less, those revenues have decreased. In Ohio, for example, state officials predict that their gas tax receipts will be $15 million less this year than in 1980. Meanwhile, the cost of rebuilding a road is 166% higher than it was only a decade ago. Inevitably, repairs are put off. Maine's original 1980 budget called for repaving 1,250 miles of highway; because of inflation and a decline in revenues, only 524 miles were actually restored.