Repairs Backlog for U.S. Rural Roads

October 2022

America’s rural transportation system faces a $180 billion backlog in funding for needed repairs and improvements to the rural transportation system, according to a new report released by TRIP, a national transportation research non-profit.

The report, Rural Connections: Examining the Safety, Connectivity, Condition and Funding Needs of America’s Rural Roads & Bridges, evaluates the safety and condition of the nation’s rural roads and bridges and finds that the nation’s rural transportation system is in need of immediate improvements to address deficient roads and bridges, high crash rates, and inadequate connectivity and capacity.

Roads, highways, rails and bridges in the nation’s rural areas face a number of significant challenges: they lack adequate capacity; they fail to provide needed levels of connectivity to many communities; and, they cannot adequately support growing freight travel.

The TRIP report finds that traffic crashes and fatalities on rural non-Interstate roads are disproportionately high, occurring at a rate double than on all other roads. In 2020, non-Interstate rural roads had a traffic fatality rate of 2.17 deaths for every 100 million vehicle miles of travel (VMT), compared to a fatality rate on all other roads of 1.09. While the nation’s rural non-Interstate roads carried 23 percent of all vehicle travel in 2020, 38 percent of fatalities occurred on these roads.

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