Sacramento, CA…Caltrans Director Malcolm Dougherty issued the following statement in response to a new report, Rural Connections: Challenges and Opportunities in America’s Heartland, released today by TRIP. The report released today 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 improvements to address deficient roads and bridges, high crash rates and inadequate connectivity and capacity:

“This study illustrates the consequences of years of backlogged maintenance, all stemming from an aging transportation system with needs far exceeding the resources provided to maintain it. Luckily, California’s lawmakers acted to provide badly needed investment in the state’s transportation infrastructure through the Road Repair and Accountability Act (SB 1). This funding is a game changing investment and an opportunity for the state, cities and counties to make significant improvements to our roads, both rural and urban alike.

The creation of the Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Account will provide the funding needed to tackle deferred maintenance needs on our state highways and local roads. Caltrans has already begun expediting $200 million in current pavement projects which will extend the service life of our roadways. Though the infusion of SB 1 transportation dollars comes in November, we have already begun identifying and accelerating projects around the state that need attention the most.”

TRIP is a national non-profit transportation research group based in Washington D.C. The organization researches, evaluates and distributes economic and technical data on surface transportation issues. For more information on the organization, visit http://www.tripnet.org/.

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