To experience America’s crumbling infrastructure firsthand, look no farther than San Francisco and Oakland — ranked this week by a transportation research group as being home to the worst roads of any large urban region in the country.
The Bay Area cities and their surrounding neighborhoods topped the list for having poor roadways for the second consecutive year, according to a study conducted by the Washington, D.C., group Trip.
San Francisco and Oakland had a whopping 71 percent of roads in shoddy condition, more than 10 percentage points higher than the Los Angeles area, which was the runner-up.
“It’s a simple explanation. We just haven’t invested enough in our infrastructure over the last couple of years,” said Will Kempton, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Transportation California. “The demand is very significant, and our system is aging.”
The lack of state and local dollars going to infrastructure maintenance, combined with a rising population pounding the pavement, were cited in the Trip study as factors in creating the nation’s roughest roads.
The Bay Area’s ranking was surprising, said Robert Cervero, a city planning professor at UC Berkeley and director of the UC Transportation Research Center. He noted that while the region doesn’t deal with extremely cold weather, which can deteriorate roads, part of the problem could be the heavy truck traffic going to and from ports and railheads. But deferred maintenance is likely the bigger culprit, he said.
“New construction tends to win out over maintenance, partly for political reasons — politicians get more political capital in ‘cutting ribbons’ for new mega-projects than patching up potholes, reconstructing damaged roads, etc.,” Cervero said in an email, pointing to the new Bay Bridge as an example of a big-ticket project that took a large chunk of the region’s transportation budget.
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