In Our View: Roads Don’t Stay Evergreen

For those who frequently drive the old Evergreen Highway, the journey all too often hearkens back to the early days of the corridor. That’s because it all too often feels like they are riding in a horse and buggy with all the jarring bumps and bounces.

The highway, which runs from Chelsea Avenue to the city limits at 192nd Avenue and bisects the area between Highway 14 and the Columbia River, is one of the region’s oldest and most scenic roadways. The problem is that the road is showing its age. “I have never heard a resident express that they want to keep the road as it is — unsafe and difficult to drive,” resident Stephen Line told The Columbian last week after a Vancouver City Council meeting. “No one’s using stagecoaches anymore on that road.”

No, the problems are modern ones, and with them come modern price tags. So, while city officials weigh the potential costs of repaving the road, the old Evergreen Highway serves as a microcosm of persistent debates about infrastructure throughout the country, the state, and the city. Those debates come with an indisputable truth: We can pay for it now, or pay more for it later. As U.S. News reported last week: “The American Society of Civil Engineers most recently gave America a D+ rating in terms of infrastructure, citing dilapidated roadways, insufficient waterways and ‘a pressing need for modernization.’ The group estimates $3.6 trillion would need to be invested into U.S. infrastructure by 2020 just to raise the country’s support systems to acceptable levels.”

Discussion about the United States’ infrastructure typically refers to bridges, major highways, and airports — large projects that serve thousands or millions of people and are essential to commerce and a thriving economy. But on a smaller scale, the old Evergreen Highway invites the same kind of debate.

Technically, Evergreen Highway is rated as a “failed” street on the Pavement Condition index. Rebuilding the 6.7-mile-long road with new asphalt designed to last 50 years would cost between $27 million and $40 million, and Vancouver City Manager Eric Holmes said, “It’s unlikely that we’ll be in a position to do a complete reconstruction of that roadway in the foreseeable future.” That leaves the options of an “enhanced cape seal” that costs $11 to $14 per square yard and is designed to last five to seven years, or a thick asphalt overlay at $32 to $37 per yard with a lifespan of 8-12 years. City construction manager Dan Swensen told the city council, “The cost problem for us here is the size of the project.”

But the overriding problem is the reluctance of taxpayers to invest in infrastructure, be it old highways that serve neighborhoods or vast highways that serve a metropolis. As Andrew Flowers wrote for FiveThirtyEight.com in 2014: “Nationwide, public construction spending is just over 1.5 percent of GDP — the lowest share since 1993. Public construction does not exactly equate with infrastructure investment, but it’s a fair proxy. The answer to what’s holding back U.S. infrastructure investment lies not so much with President Obama and Congress as with county commissioners and state legislatures. Most of the money spent on building schools, highways and waste disposal facilities comes from state and local governments, not from the federal government.”

Locally, the Vancouver City Council last year approved a street funding package that will generate $7 million a year. As the old Evergreen Highway and many other roads around town demonstrate, there is no shortage of need for that money.