Rural Road and Bridge Needs 2023

Abstract

The Indiana General Assembly passed legislation in 2016 and 2017 that expanded the resources available to local governments for local roads and bridges. This report is part of a series of research funded by the Indiana Soybean Alliance and the Indiana Corn Marketing Council to evaluate the condition of Indiana’s rural road and bridge infrastructure. This report is the first to reflect three full years of data for the 91 study counties,1 allowing the research team to evaluate trends in local road and bridge inventories, conditions, spending, and revenue. This analysis utilizes data from county highway departments, including road inventories and conditions recorded in the 2021–23 local asset management plans, bridge inventories and conditions from the 2021–23 National Bridge Inventory (downloaded in October 2021, December 2022, and October 2023), as well as road and bridge spending and revenue recorded in the 2020–22 Annual Operational Reports for Local Roads and Bridges. The research team also utilized supplemental revenue data available from state agencies, and spending and revenue data from county annual financial reports. Overall, data shows that road and bridge conditions are stabilizing, and in some cases showing improvement. This suggests that the additional funding that has been made available appears to have made a positive impact on conditions that were reported anecdotally before 2016.