Alabama’s state and local governments maintain facilities that enable Alabamians to travel by land, air and water. Six percent of our governments’ expenditures are allocated for transportation.
The largest share of this money goes toward the state’s road network, which includes 200,000 miles of public highway lanes and 15,800 bridges. On an average day, more than 800 vehicles pass a typical point on this road system.
Annual road usage amounts to 60 billion miles of travel.
The state of Alabama owns only 14 percent of the lane miles and 36 percent of the bridges in this network; counties and municipalities own most of the rest. However, the state’s highways are the busiest, accounting for 58 percent of all miles traveled.
The most recent quality statistics show that 2 percent of Alabama’s highways need immediate resurfacing, 2 percent of urban roads need immediate widening and 25 percent of all bridges are substandard.
Forty percent of road and bridge funding comes from the state and 30 percent each from local and federal sources. The largest amounts come from taxes on fuel and vehicles.
Alabama’s fuel tax rate was last raised in 1992. From 1993 until 2005, state fuel and vehicle tax revenue increased by 28 percent but construction prices rose by almost 70 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
By boat, plane, train
Alabama spends very little on urban mass transit, in part because the state constitution does not allow use of fuel and vehicle tax revenue for this purpose.
The state’s water transportation system is anchored in Mobile, the nation’s 11th busiest port. The Alabama State Port Authority is supported by public and private investment. Upstream Alabama has 1,270 miles of inland waterways, more than all but five other states.
Over 2.8 million passengers take off from the state’s six commercial airports annually. Federal grants are the main source of public funding. Alabama also has over 3,300 miles of privately owned freight railroad track.
EDITOR’S NOTE — Jim Williams is executive director for the nonprofit, nonpartisan Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama.
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