Richmond, Va. - There’s a new report card out about things that affect all of us in Hampton Roads, and the grades are not good.
The Virginia Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers evaluated the condition of the state’s infrastructure assets and graded them.
The grades are ased on the reported condition of existing assets, expected service life,current functionality and level of service, future growth needs, and anticipated level of funding required to maintain.
Unfortunately, the grades aren’t that good and the fixes are very expensive.
Think the roads we use every day are in bad shape? The civil engineers agree. Virginia’s roads were given a D – the lowest grade.
Virginia has the third largest state roadway system in the country and it hasn’t kept up with growth.
The report card looked at infrastructure all across the state and found it is aging and crumbling.
Bridges received a C. More than 30 percent of bridges in Virginia are more than 50-years-old.
Schools received a C-. More than 60 percent of school facilities are more than 40-years-old.
Dams and Drinking Water also got C grades.
The only category that got higher than a C was Solid Waste, which earned a B.
The report was released at the State Capitol, where lawmakers are in sesson. The engineers say the problems can be fixed at a whopping cost of $40 billion over two decades.
There is no money to pay for those upgrades and lawmakers are in no mood to raise taxes to foot the bill. The overall grade for infrastructure in Virginia is a C-. But that is a little better than the D+ the engineers gave five years ago.
