Road Repaving Projects Cut As Gas Tax Revenue Drops And Asphalt Prices Rise

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Soaring gas prices at the pump means more drivers are going to have a bumpier ride no matter where they go because economic pressure is forcing states to cut back on repaving projects.

Americans drove fewer vehicle miles this year than last year, which means that states have less state and federal gasoline excise tax money to pay for the soaring cost of asphalt to repave roads.

Asphalt is made from a combination of rocks and sand mixed with liquid asphalt, made of crude oil, to hold it all together. Soaring oil prices have caused asphalt prices to climb at a time when gasoline price hikes have caused more people to drive less.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, Americans drove 11 billion fewer vehicle miles in March of this year compared to March of last year, the latest figures available. Officials said in a statement that driving pattern is part of an ongoing trend that began last November.

Drops in gas tax revenue have had a huge impact in North Carolina where state Department of Transportation officials say they plan to cut road repaving by 20 percent there this year because of increases in the price of oil-based asphalt.

But in New Hampshire the cuts are even deeper. State officials there say that with asphalt prices expected to hit $500 they will repave 30 percent fewer miles of state highways this year than they had originally planned.

"If we doubled the amount we spend on paving, we could pave the amount we did in 2000," Bill Boynton, spokesman for the New Hampshire State Department of Transportation, told The Eagle Tribune. "This is part of what made our 10-year plan a 35-year plan."

In Kentucky, a state transportation cabinet member put the jump in costs in perspective.

The price of asphalt in Kentucky went from $273.22 in October 2007 to $474.63 on June 1, which was a hike of more than $200 per liquid ton in less than a year, then it jumped another 10 percent on June 12.

Then there are the increased costs for running the equipment used to repave roads.

"You normally repave a road every seven or eight years. If you're paving fewer miles each year, at some point it's going to be a longer cycle before you get back to paving that road," Keith Todd, spokesman for the Kentucky state highway department's District 1 office in Reidland, told the Paducah Sun.

But it becomes more complicated than that.

North Carolina road officials say that some roads require more asphalt than others. So if an interstate highway is being repaved it is wider and deeper than a city street or rural highway, meaning it requires more asphalt for fewer miles.

And the problem is likely to grow worse with time, from the time a contract is bid until the project is done there are often substantial increases in the price of materials and usually there are allowances for such increases. But that makes it hard for state and local governments to figure out exactly how much repaving their budgets can pay for.

In North Carolina, they are eating into next year's budget to complete work planned for this year says Barry Moose, the Department of Transportation's division engineer for the Charlotte region.

"For every million dollars in contract work I had to do (this year), I'm now budgeting $1.2 million," Moose told the Charlotte Observer. "When I do that, I'll have less money available for next year's contract."