Accessing federal funds for infrastructure projects is much too difficult, county leaders say. With reauthorization of the FAST Act on the table, they want a bigger say in how money can be spent.
Counties own 38% of bridges and 45% of roads across the country, totaling more than 3.1 million miles of pavement that require regular upkeep. That’s a big responsibility for local governments that often lack the necessary funding to complete all the projects in their backlog.
“From the moment we leave our front doors, we rely on safe infrastructure to get us to our destinations, and that usually starts with local roads,” said Corina Lopez, the vice mayor of San Leandro, California at a Wednesday event hosted by the National Association of Counties and the National League of Cities.
“There’s no way we can do this alone at the local level,” Lopez continued. “We need the federal government to round out the picture and create more robust infrastructure spending.”
Route Fifty
by Emma Coleman
May 16, 2019