Lake County Highway Department Supt. Marcus Malczewski is already dreading the phone calls he will inevitably receive in the spring.
“People call in constantly about potholes and the bad condition of certain roads,” Malczewski said. “I’m sympathetic because their roads haven’t been done in more than 12 or 13 years, but we just don’t have the money.”
Malczewski’s experience isn’t that different from his counterparts in other counties, as maintaining aging roads and bridges is proving to be an uphill climb as the money increasingly isn’t there to fix them.
The federal fuel tax — 18.4 cents per gallon for unleaded gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel — hasn’t been increased in 21 years, and it’s been more than a decade since the state increased its portion — about 38 cents per gallon for unleaded and about 50 cents per gallon for diesel. Cars are running on less gas and revenues are dropping. Construction costs, however, are continually on the rise.
Lake County oversees 550 miles of roads and 180 bridges, while Porter County maintains 815 miles of roads and 127 bridges.
Bridge replacement funds come from property tax revenues, so the state-mandated property tax caps have cut into that pool of money. Also, Lake County officials defunded that budget line item in 2013 to close a $15 million budget hole.
To fund 2015 projects, Malczewski expects to see $1.6 million from a county bond issue.
Lake County had 26 bridges deemed functionally obsolete in a 2012 federal bridge inspection report and another 27 bridges in the county were considered structurally deficient.
The Indiana General Assembly has allocated about $400 million toward infrastructure over the past two years — about 40 percent went to local departments — but much more remains to be done.
Rep. Ed Soliday, R-4, chairman of the Indiana House Roads and Transportation Committee in the House, said the state is in the final year of a study of how much it will cost to maintain the condition of its roads and bridges.
“We began four years ago a study to define the condition of our infrastructure and say what will cost to maintain,” Soliday said. “We used to define it simply as having the concrete replaced every 30 years and the asphalt every 12 years. We want to see what it says when we use an independent party to define what is good, better and best in terms of infrastructure design.”
Porter County Highway Department Supt. David James said he’s started using aluminum box bridges for some bridge replacement projects.
“The biggest cost on bridge projects is in the engineering,” James said. “(An aluminum box bridge) knocks a $1 million bridge down to $250,000. We use it when we have an old bridge taken out over a box culvert. It’s not applicable in every case, for example INDOT bridges over interstates.”
Soliday expects further discussion on how to rectify diminishing revenues for infrastructure, particularly due to the gas tax.
Indiana residents contribute $208 to roads in a year, Soliday said.
“Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-Merrillville) and I are friends and we were talking about if you raise it by 25 percent the average Hoosier pays $50 more each year,” he said. “I’m not for it or against it; that’s just the facts.
“We have to be more thoughtful. We should be thinking outside the box.”
Soliday expects the legislature to allocate another $400 million for road infrastructure and there won’t be requirements that mandate half of it must be used for new construction.
“Last year we cut that money free because INDOT said we can’t maintain the roads,” Soliday said. “My goal is to keep (road funding) at $400 million. We probably need $600 million or more, but we don’t have that empirical data to back up that amount yet.”
For their part, Malczewski and James aren’t expecting much of an increase on the gas tax front.
“None of the legislators want to raise taxes, but the public doesn’t see it from our end,” James said. “They want the roads in good shape and they want it yesterday. I just wish they’d walk a mile in our shoes.”