$1.6 Billion Helps PA's Infrastructure, But Officials Want More

HARRISBURG, PA — PennDOT received $1.6 billion in new bridge funds from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, but state and municipal officials still need to come up with new revenue options to fund desperately needed bridge repairs.

"The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law's bridge funding will help with some local bridges, but we need to leverage all available state and local-funding solutions to help our municipalities," PennDOT Deputy Secretary for Planning Larry Shifflet said Tuesday in a PennDOT press release following a meeting with representatives of Pennsylvania Association of Township Supervisors.

There are 120,596 miles of public roads in Pennsylvania. An estimated 2,560 municipalities manage an estimated 78,000 linear miles of roadway and more than 6,600 bridges longer than 20 feet.

A total of 15 percent of the $1.6 billion of the Infrastructure law will be designated to county and municipal bridges, PennDOT officials said in the press release.

PennDOT has also committed $455.9 million in gas taxes to help certified municipalities maintain their roads and bridges, approximately 1 percent more than last year.

About 74 percent of the funding for road and bridge repair comes from a gas tax. For every gallon of gas, there is a 57.6 cent tax to PennDOT and an 18.5 cent tax to the federal government.

"We appreciate that PennDOT recognizes that local government is an important partner of the transportation network in Pennsylvania, being responsible for 2/3 of the road miles in the Commonwealth," said David Sanko, executive director of the township supervisors’ association.

"This liquid fuels distribution is an integral part of local funding, but by no means enough to cover the costs of building and maintaining our portion of the network."

Unmet road and bridge repair costs

Governor Tom Wolf's Transportation Revenue Options Commission reported unmet funding needs on locally owned roads and bridges is estimated to be nearly $3.9 billion per year, growing to $5.1 billion annually by 2030.

This is in addition to the dedicated local funding municipalities receive from PennDOT through previous legislation and approximately 13.5 percent of annual gas tax revenues.

One option is that counties can implement a $5 fee for each vehicle registered to an address within the county and use the funds on locally owned infrastructure.

To date, 27 counties have implemented this fee, including Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester and Montgomery counties.

Local governments and other eligible entities may apply for low-interest loans from the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Bank which helps fund and accelerate transportation projects as well as spur economic development.

PennDOT's annual liquid fuels distributions assist with municipalities' highway and bridge-related expenses such as snow removal and road repaving.

There are 73,141 miles owned by municipalities and eligible for liquid fuels. The formula for payments is based on a municipality's population and miles of locally-owned roads.

To be eligible for liquid fuels, a roadway must be formally adopted as a public street by the municipality, meet certain dimension requirements, and be able to safely accommodate vehicles driving at least 15 mph.

For the complete list of local payments, visit PennDOT's Municipal Liquid Fuels Program website.