The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has just completed its first ever “exhaustive evaluation” of Minnesota’s infrastructure. The state received a ‘C’ grade overall, but only a ‘D+’ on its roads. That’s bad news for the state, but even worse news for the country. That’s because despite its low rating, Minnesota actually scored higher than the national average.
It’s no secret that our country’s infrastructure is hurting. Truckers know more than most that this not-very-sexy topic doesn’t get the attention that it deserves. Many roads and bridges are past their expected lifespan and are badly in need of repair or replacement. It’s no different in Minnesota where roads got a ‘D+’ rating and bridges got a ‘C’.
For context, ASCE defines a ‘C’ as “Mediocre, Requires Attention” and ‘D’ as “Poor, At Risk.”
The report claims that there’s more wrong with the roads in the state than just their poor condition. There’s also currently an enormous funding gap of $885 million per year. And because there’s currently no plan to bridge that gap, ASCE expects the roads and bridges to continue to get worse.
While things sound grim for Minnesota infrastructure, it’s actually not as bad off as the rest of the country. On average, the ASCE gave U.S. roads a ‘D’ and U.S. infrastructure as a whole a ‘D+’ rating.
In fact infrastructure supporting aviation, dams, drinking water, energy, hazardous waste, inland waterways, levees, roads, schools, public transit, and wastewater are all in the ‘D-‘ to ‘D+’ range. According to the ASCE that means that “A large portion of the system exhibits significant deterioration. Condition and capacity are of serious concern with strong risk of failure.”
The only nationwide infrastructure category that scores higher than a ‘C+’ is Railroads with a ‘B’ rating.
You can see the full ASCE report card for Minnesota’s infrastructure here.
And the good side is with most of the fuel tax money going to build bicycle paths I’m sure they’re in good shape
Long term Gov. plan might be to haul all goods on Bicycles in Minnesota.
Thankfully Michigan has been investing a ton into their roads. The past many years have been terrible, but one section at a time things are starting to get better here.
The politicians who pulled infrastructure funding to line their pockets will be long gone before it becomes a crisis.
I’m not sure your definition of crisis but I’d place having the entirety of our highways & bridges in the “Poor, At Risk” category is definitely Crisis in my book.