Our Principles

Fix it first

If your house has a leaky roof, you fix that before remodeling your kitchen. The federal transportation program should do the same and prioritize existing maintenance needs ahead of building new things which require decades of additional repair costs.

These investments in expansion don’t just redirect funds away from much-needed investments in repair; they continually grow our annual spending needs, widening the gap. Every new lane-mile of road costs approximately $24,000 per year to preserve in a state of good repair. By expanding roads, we are borrowing against the future. – Beth Osborne, T4America

Roads are not assets, they're liabilities

Expanding the system while ignoring basic maintenance is a recipe for disaster. From 2009-17 we added enough miles to the public road network to build a new road back and forth across our enormous country 83 times. And every single new lane-mile or bridge requires decades of ongoing maintenance costs.

Dive into our repair data hub

The expensive failures of expansion

Despite endless promises that the next new lanes will “fix” congestion, the billions spent on this strategy has only made congestion worse, costing Americans more in time and transportation costs and creating billions in long-term maintenance liabilities.

Learn more about induced demand

The public believes we should prioritize repair

Doing so would be enormously popular across the political divide. In a 2020 T4America poll, 79 percent agreed the government should fix existing roads before building new ones and 73 percent said state governments should have to justify building any new roads. In this 2023 poll, “building new highways and freeways” was the least popular long-term solution for reducing traffic.

Our priorities are the problem

It's not a money problem. The last two decades have proven that pouring more money into the same flawed system is failing to make it any better. Congress has to stop asking taxpayers for more funding to fix crumbling roads and bridges when they do not prioritize taking care of what those taxpayers have already paid for. Federal funding needs to be primarily focused on achieving a state of good repair.

The need to prioritize repair

$830 billion

The estimated cost of repairing existing highways.

43,000

The total number of U.S. bridges in poor condition.

223,494

The total growth of the U.S. road network (in lane-miles) from 2009-17. It's enough to drive across the US 83 times.

79%

The share of voters who believe government should fix existing roads before building any new roads.

The score for U.S. road conditions in the American Society of Civli Engineers 2001 report card. After giving states billions to spend on whatever they choose, roads were a D+ in 2025.

Fix it first