Highway Aging

Highways slowly deteriorate with age. Eventually they need to be completely rebuilt. The video shows some of the mechanisms at work.

Interstates After the Age of Cheap Gas

The Interstate highway system was built in an era of cheap oil to meet the needs of a population able to buy cheap gasoline. In the future, with expensive gasoline making driving a much reduced activity and pricy petroleum leading to expensive asphalt and thus costly maintenance, what will happen to the Interstate system? Here is one look into the future.

Asphalt Needs Petroleum

Your car needs petroleum for more reasons than you might know. The gasoline it burns comes from crude oil, but did you know the asphalt that surfaces many of the roads you drive on also needs crude oil to make? The price of oil is now in the middle eighty dollar range. The price of gasoline is reaching three dollars a gallon. The rapidly developing economies of India, China, Brazil and others are beginning to compete with the US for the global oil supply. And all of the world's asphalt roads are clamoring for their share of crude oil. No surprise that the price of gas is high and rising. The surprise is that there are still a lot of people who think it will go back down, to the way it was ten years ago in 2000, when 80 dollar oil was considered impossible.

Road Mileage versus GDP

Maintaining roads is a costly affair. Without a road network in good shape, the value of owning a car is considerably less. Paved roads give the best driving experience, allowing for smooth travel at high speeds. Paved roads also give better fuel economy, as traveling over rough dirt or gravel increases the friction and makes the engine work harder. Recall that asphalt paved roads get more expensive to maintain as the price of crude oil rises, because crude oil is the main raw material from which asphalt is made.

We can estimate how well a country is positioned to maintain its road network by comparing the size of the network to the country's GDP. The CIA World Factbook has quite a few statistics measured per country. Amongst them are the total length of the road network, paved and unpaved, in kilometers per country and the country's GDP. The table below shows kilometers of road per million dollars of GDP based on this data. Countries with more road kilometers per million dollars of GDP will be harder pressed to keep their roads in good shape.

The United States weighs in with about half a kilometer of road per million dollars of GDP. France and Russia have about the same values. Germany, China and Japan have less roads relative to their economies, with only about a quarter of a kilometer to maintain per million dollars. India and Brazil are on the other end, with more roads relative to their economies; they have to support closer to a kilometer of road per million dollars of GDP.

Relatively speaking, it would seem that the US has about an average investment in road networks relative to the economy. Not bad, but in a future world where road maintenance gets more and more expensive following the lead of Germany, China and Japan could be smarter. The US could find that it has put too many GDP eggs into the transport basket.

Country	Road KM/Million $ GDP
Hong Kong	0.00663846
Singapore	0.0138588
United Arab Emirates	0.019777
Macau	0.0222712
Gibraltar	0.0272045
Kuwait	0.0384548
Maldives	0.0510737
Monaco	0.0512138
Taiwan	0.0564131
Jersey	0.0701961
Andorra	0.0737705
Korea South	0.0770022
Qatar	0.0850901
Israel	0.0878564
Liechtenstein	0.0913462
Bermuda	0.0993333
Equatorial Guinea	0.125217
Bahrain	0.130086
Mauritius	0.131432
Luxembourg	0.13243
Sudan	0.134661
Lebanon	0.157835
San Marino	0.175692
United Kingdom	0.17816
Isle of Man	0.183891
Brunei	0.186415
Netherlands	0.201143
Iran	0.204963
Guatemala	0.205018
Egypt	0.207666
Germany	0.220335
Switzerland	0.224137
Malta	0.224202
Mexico	0.227789
British Virgin Islands	0.234357
Tunisia	0.234594
China	0.24156
El Salvador	0.248937
Seychelles	0.25151
Dominican Republic	0.252014
Jordan	0.252588
Malaysia	0.256285
Italy	0.26694
Venezuela	0.269871
Japan	0.275806
Trinidad and Tobago	0.286009
Bahamas The	0.290526
Barbados	0.298118
Panama	0.30776
Peru	0.317987
Austria	0.323859
Thailand	0.328145
Chile	0.328458
Norway	0.336395
Greece	0.341864
Croatia	0.348607
Portugal	0.349347
Denmark	0.354542
Haiti	0.360798
Slovakia	0.365284
Puerto Rico	0.372861
Saudi Arabia	0.383063
American Samoa	0.384147
Kosovo	0.3848
Belgium	0.3902
Nauru	0.4
Argentina	0.40225
Honduras	0.402367
Finland	0.402789
Ecuador	0.404352
Cayman Islands	0.404848
Armenia	0.409357
Russia	0.410832
Colombia	0.41479
Morocco	0.417875
Indonesia	0.42654
Bulgaria	0.42808
West Bank	0.430711
Gabon	0.433365
France	0.446085
United States	0.44777
Angola	0.455931
Serbia	0.462267
Faroe Islands	0.463
Algeria	0.46382
Turkey	0.472343
Czech Republic	0.485317
Spain	0.485894
Burma	0.488511
Iraq	0.497617
Ukraine	0.50036
Saint Kitts and Nevis	0.504279
Ireland	0.511122
Ethiopia	0.51928
Kazakhstan	0.519654
Tuvalu	0.535475
French Polynesia	0.548961
Nepal	0.550558
Turks and Caicos Islands	0.560185
Cuba	0.561421
Nigeria	0.574658
Northern Mariana Islands	0.595556
Pakistan	0.601106
Swaziland	0.61689
Senegal	0.623324
Poland	0.632171
Oman	0.632571
Philippines	0.634538
Korea North	0.63885
Cyprus	0.642794
Slovenia	0.650681
Saint Lucia	0.682074
Macedonia	0.700053
Antigua and Barbuda	0.710799
Costa Rica	0.723382
Romania	0.730945
Bosnia and Herzegovina	0.733826
South Africa	0.735675
Azerbaijan	0.760265
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	0.773321
Virgin Islands	0.797083
Canada	0.799923
New Zealand	0.802539
Hungary	0.811225
Albania	0.823422
Cape Verde	0.828221
Belarus	0.82937
Brazil	0.876811
Solomon Islands	0.87969
Jamaica	0.896506
Vietnam	0.916958
Georgia	0.942904
Grenada	0.947059
Botswana	0.951605
Fiji	0.959019
Syria	0.983253
India	1.00377
Micronesia Federated States of	1.00798
Australia	1.01254
Eritrea	1.01416
Iceland	1.01461
Suriname	1.01846
Paraguay	1.019
Kenya	1.03121
Sri Lanka	1.05642
Bangladesh	1.05665
Dominica	1.07394
Montenegro	1.07845
Vanuatu	1.07994
Congo Republic of the	1.12339
Nicaragua	1.13108
Libya	1.14026
Kiribati	1.15358
Sao Tome and Principe	1.15482
Cameroon	1.17123
Moldova	1.17278
Belize	1.18293
Comoros	1.18646
Uzbekistan	1.20401
Sweden	1.2324
Tonga	1.24065
Benin	1.24417
Mali	1.26841
Lithuania	1.27371
Yemen	1.28677
Malawi	1.29297
Cambodia	1.35998
Rwanda	1.43982
Bolivia	1.44027
Tanzania	1.45074
Togo	1.46589
Papua New Guinea	1.48823
Kyrgyzstan	1.58935
Mozambique	1.59079
Anguilla	1.60698
Djibouti	1.62084
Gambia The	1.64339
Cook Islands	1.74672
Mauritania	1.75012
Uganda	1.76512
New Caledonia	1.78024
Latvia	1.78883
Uruguay	1.79644
Ghana	1.80246
Niger	1.80272
Turkmenistan	1.87315
Afghanistan	1.88844
Estonia	2.03411
Tajikistan	2.10516
Chad	2.11125
Laos	2.12784
Lesotho	2.14814
Bhutan	2.27852
Samoa	2.28893
Cote d'Ivoire	2.34467
Timor-Leste	2.39113
Saint Pierre and Miquelon	2.42236
Sierra Leone	2.57521
Guyana	2.68079
Namibia	3.1805
Madagascar	3.25387
Guinea-Bissau	3.85388
Burundi	3.96333
Somalia	4.00072
Guinea	4.17589
Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)	4.18649
Burkina Faso	5.15006
Mongolia	5.18465
Zambia	5.21323
Liberia	6.92358
Congo Democratic Republic of the	7.39388
Central African Republic	7.63411
Saint Helena	11
Niue	11.988
Marshall Islands	15.191
Zimbabwe	50.5283

Roads in Poor Condition

Looking over the transportation data at statemaster.com, we can find a list of the number of roads in poor condition per state. Across the country there are 65,874 roads rated in "Poor" condition. These ratings are based on data that the various states are required to report to the Federal Highway Administration. The state with the most poor condition roads is California with 10,091 and the state with the fewest is Georgia with only 15. Looks like we might be seeing a lot more gravel roads in California in the future. With the price of crude oil now seemingly permanently above $70 it will be costly to resurface roads with asphalt. Asphalt is made from crude oil, thus rising in price in tandem with crude.

Roads Need Oil Too

Without well maintained roads to drive them on, cars would not be nearly as useful as they are. We are all very aware of the fact that our cars need a constant supply of gasoline, and thus oil, to keep going. Not as commonly known is the fact that our roads need oil too.

Almost all of the paved roads in the nation are paved with asphalt. However, asphalt is made from oil! It is the lowest grade part of crude oil. After removing all of the fuel components, the remainder becomes asphalt.

The increase of the price of crude oil has brought along with it an increase in asphalt price. That coupled with the current economic crisis means that the states and counties charged with overseeing and maintaining the bulk of the nations' roads are not able to keep them paved. For example, in Michigan, 20 of the 83 counties in that state have converted paved roads in bad shape to gravel. Northern states will generally have the most trouble because the freeze-thaw cycles are hard on pavement.

Another feedback on all this is that gravel roads induce worse fuel economy. Vehicles will use the fewest gallons per hundred miles when driving on the smoothest, most level roads. Gravel roads have more friction that smooth paved ones. Thus as high oil prices lead to high asphalt prices, more and more roads will convert to gravel. That will cause the vehicles that use those roads to burn more gasoline, which will in turn lead to yet more upwards pressure on the price of crude.

The half century of happy motoring the the US is drawing to a close. The signs are all around; from the historically high and persistent price of crude oil, to the reversion of paved roads to gravel to the introduction of the Tata Nano in India. It is difficult to see how over the next decade or so we can possibly avoid a world where driving is expensive and more difficult.