Repair Priorities 2026

While the nation makes slow progress to improve the conditions of a small share of its roadways, the cost to fix them all continues to grow.

Between 2018 and 2024, the percentage of federal-aid-eligible roads that were rough and damaged enough to be rated in “poor” condition fell by just three percentage points, despite historic levels of federal investment, including roughly $60 billion per year for roads and bridges under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Since the last edition of this report in 2019, states and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) have failed to make meaningful improvements, and taxpayers are still not seeing adequate returns for the substantial size of their investments—including billions in deficit spending beyond the gas tax.

The high cost of repair

Preserving the conditions of our good roads and improving all the poor ones comes with an enormous price tag. Maintaining the lane miles of roads that were in good and fair condition in 2024 would require an estimated $32.6 billion on average annually for routine preservation and maintenance. On top of that, addressing the existing backlog of roads in poor condition would cost an additional $10.6 billion per year over the course of a typical six-year federal transportation bill. In total, this amounts to $43.2 billion annually—more than $259 billion over six years—just to clear the backlog and keep the system in acceptable repair.

The fact that we have enough money but the outcomes aren’t improving underscores a fundamental problem: It is not simply how much we spend, but how we spend it. Federal policy gives states broad flexibility in how transportation dollars are allocated, with few enforceable requirements to prioritize repair or to demonstrate measurable improvements in system conditions. As a result, states are free to expand roadway capacity while deferring essential maintenance, adding new long-term liabilities even as existing infrastructure falls further into disrepair.

Decades of increased spending, including major stimulus investments, have not translated into better outcomes. National assessments continue to rate road and bridge conditions as mediocre. The American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2025 report card rated roads a D+ and bridges a C—essentially the same scores from their 2001 report card, despite hundreds of billions in federal spending since then. This reinforces the reality that funding alone, without accountability, will not solve the problem.

At the core of the problem is a failure to align priorities with outcomes.

While policymakers routinely emphasize the need for repair—especially when making the case for increased spending—these commitments are rarely backed by enforceable standards to actually fix it first. The result is a system where oversight is limited, and taxpayers are left without clarity on whether their investments are improving road conditions. A better approach would reorient the federal program toward maintaining and operating existing assets first, before building new infrastructure that adds to their long-term maintenance obligations. Until these priorities are matched with clear, measurable goals, the gap between rhetoric and results from the federal transportation program will continue to widen.

More funding alone will not fix the nation’s deteriorating roads and bridges. Congress should ensure that federal transportation funding is paired with strong accountability measures that prioritize repair and improve system performance by taking the following actions in the next surface transportation reauthorization bill:

1) Guarantee measurable outcomes for taxpayers with any funding

We can no longer ask American taxpayers for funding to fix our crumbling roads and bridges without assurances that the money will do just that. The next federal surface transportation reauthorization (the IIJA will expire in September 2026) should require improvements in road and bridge conditions. Tangible goals, such as reducing the backlog by half, would provide the accountability that has been sorely missing from federal transportation policy for decades.

2) Prioritize data transparency and reporting standards

Reliable, timely data are essential to effectively understanding the scope of needs within the federal transportation system. Yet states have consistently fallen short due to gaps, inconsistencies, and a lack of transparency in reporting, which complicate oversight. States define projects in varied ways, making it unclear how expansions, repairs, or safety improvements are classified. When comparing one year to another, some states seem to lose thousands of miles of roadway. It is hard to believe we can expect conditions to improve if states can’t even keep track of what they have.

Congress should require the FHWA to collect standardized information on how many lane-miles of highways we have, what condition they are in, and exactly how they are spending taxpayer funds. This is particularly galling at a time when Congress is unwilling to raise the funds they claim we need and, instead, spends future dollars that will be even more needed to maintain the new things being built. Only with accurate, current, and comprehensive data can agencies hope to spend their funding wisely, and can the public hold transportation agencies and Congress accountable for producing the results they have been promised for so long.

3) Require states to repair their existing systems before expanding

Congress should require states to dedicate funding to repairing and maintaining existing systems before building new or expanded roadways and bridges. Continuing to expand the highway system while neglecting maintenance results in states returning to Congress every few years for additional funding to address avoidable, self-made problems.

States should also be required to implement a fix-it-first strategy by demonstrating that they can afford to operate and maintain new infrastructure capacity throughout its useful life while maintaining the rest of their system in a state of good repair. The federal transit program requires exactly this: major new projects are evaluated before receiving federal funding to ensure that the transit agency can operate and maintain the new asset while continuing to operate and maintain the rest of the transit system. Even with this evaluation, some projects get through that probably should not. But in the highway program, there is no attempt to vet new projects. A highway agency can brazenly say they plan to build a new bridge while a bridge next to it is closed due to structural issues. While that might not be well-received, it is considered perfectly fine under the bipartisan federal transportation program. That is ridiculous. Congress should give taxpayers real guarantees that the taxpayer funds they are taking (or, these days, the debt they are building) will accomplish the outcomes that they repeatedly promise.