Too few dollars spent to repair roads, bridges and ferries
OLYMPIA — Highway pavement is cracking, ferries are breaking down, and bridge decks are wearing out.
It’s a worsening dilemma because the level of funding to preserve and properly maintain such infrastructure is inadequate, a top state transportation official told lawmakers Thursday.
“Unfortunately Washington’s transportation system is in a glide path to failure,” said Deputy Secretary of Transportation Keith Metcalf in a presentation to the Joint Transportation Committee. The panel is made up of Democrats and Republicans from the House and Senate transportation committees.
The state will spend an average of $550 million a year on preservation and maintenance in the next decade, he said. But it needs to be putting closer to $1.25 billion annually into the effort, he said.
Transportation officials estimate 3,600 lane miles of pavement are overdue for preservation, 15 bridges need replacement and 19 others require major rehabilitation and 56 concrete bridge decks are past due for repair.
Washington State Ferries’ fleet racked up 622 days of unscheduled maintenance in the 2019 fiscal year, Metcalf said. That’s a byproduct of having a fleet of vessels that are on average 28 years old.
Faced with this annual funding gap of $690 million, the agency looks to use dollars in ways that extend the useful life of existing infrastructure. For example, rather than repave a 10-mile stretch of highway, the state will look to patch smaller areas on heavily-used routes, he said.
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