OPINION:
Too often, we underestimate the difficulties and dangers roadway workers face while building and maintaining our roads, highways, and bridges.
When was the last time you thought about a roadway work zone? It was probably during your commute while you were stuck in traffic due to a lane closure, or following detour signs taking you away from your ideal shortcut home. Maybe the experience simply spiked frustration rather than inspiring recognition and appreciation for the roadway improvement in progress.
Let’s be honest, we’ve all been there. We have all been crunched for time getting to the airport, late for a meeting or doctor’s appointment, or trying to reach a vacation destination.
Unfortunately, distractions abound especially in the era of 24/7 social media, smartphones buzzing with endless notifications, and cars housing more technology than we ever could’ve imagined. When drivers encounter work zones, such distractions become life-threatening.
More than 100,000 crashes occur annually in work zones, causing nearly 42,000 injuries and 1,000 fatalities. About 100 of those are road worker deaths. This stark toll is going up, not down and we must take deliberate action to prevent work zone deaths.
These sobering numbers command our attention as we combat distracted driving to protect the hardworking men and women in roadway construction. There are too many tragic reminders of these incidents, such as the deadliest-ever single work zone crash last year on I-695 near Baltimore, where six roadway workers lost their lives after being struck by a speeding vehicle. Baltimore’s Key Bridge collapse this spring, in which a maintenance crew perished, underscores the unimaginable risk to workers on infrastructure projects.
Put yourself in their work boots for a moment.
While someone zips by in a 4,000-pound vehicle at 70 miles per hour through a work zone, paving crews and contractors are standing mere feet away, often without protective barriers or police presence. Sometimes these crews are working on roads packed with commuters. Other times, they’re working during the night when motorists are likely fatigued and contending with diminished visibility.
Despite these scenarios constantly repeating across our surface transportation network, the necessary work continues day in and day out. However, we need not accept these grave dangers as the norm.
The National Asphalt Pavement Association, along with many partners in the transportation construction sector, knows that much more can and must be done to protect road construction workers.
In fact, in the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), we included a provision called the Work Zone Safety Contingency Fund (WZSCF). Its intent was to expand eligibility for federal funds for work zone enhancements for qualified projects across state departments of transportation. NAPA and its sister trade associations in the construction sector worked closely on WZSCF inclusion. We continually and collaboratively promote policies that complement, highlight, and advance effective work zone safety measures.
Almost three years since IIJA’s passage, the WZSCF program has yet to materialize in a meaningful way. No one expects this eligibility expansion to eradicate all the dangers, but we can’t even begin to measure its effectiveness until the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) fully deploys this policy and determines whether it can yield successes or needs improvement in its mission to save lives.
Despite this slow start, NAPA and its partners remain committed to working with FHWA and elected officials on Capitol Hill to advance meaningful policies. FHWA’s Every Day Counts initiative prioritizes nighttime visibility in work zones and installs traffic devices that help both the workers and the motoring public. But we need to build on this momentum.
WZSCF is as critical as ever, because highway projects keep growing, multiplying the number of workers on roadways, along with the daily risks they face. Since IIJA’s passage, more than 56,000 road and bridge projects have begun. That frequency will continue as we approach the final 24 months of the bill’s implementation.
Solutions must be quickly identified and deployed to ensure work zone crews are protected and the motoring public can safely reach their destinations, while crucial improvements to our road and bridge network are completed in a timely manner.
While some solutions will be driven by local and state governments, we need to do what we can at the federal level to improve funding opportunities, expand eligibility, and support local entities on the policies that work best for road projects in their communities.
We can’t prescribe solutions across the states, but we can highlight a menu of options that should be discussed at the national level to make workers safer. These include increased funds for and use of speed cameras; mandated police and barrier utilization for projects that meet specific thresholds; deploying effective warning systems like high visibility gear and green lights for work zone trucks; national ad campaigns warning against distracted driving and cell phone usage; and so much more.
With the next highway bill on the horizon, work will begin in earnest in the 119th Congress on IIJA’s successor. Now is the time to develop and support deployable solutions. We have time to work in a bipartisan manner with stakeholders in Congress and the White House. But that’s only if we begin now, before more lives are lost.
As we work on IIJA’s successor, policy discussions will naturally gravitate to big-ticket items and debates about the highway reauthorization’s overall dollar amounts. Let’s not miss the opportunity to do all we can to protect the individuals who provide our communities with safe, smooth roads. The crews maintaining our roadways are the unsung heroes of our infrastructure network.
The next time you come upon a project site, please take the time to focus, be alert, drive cautiously, and respect the women and men in hard hats and neon vests. The work they’re doing improves our own lives. Let’s make sure we’re doing everything we can to save their lives. Robust federal funding and generational investments won’t fully be realized if we can’t honor and protect the people tasked with building our roads, highways, and bridges every day.
• Nile Elam is vice president for Government Affairs at the National Asphalt Pavement Association, which represents U.S. asphalt pavement producers, paving contractors, equipment manufacturers and distributors, suppliers, researchers, engineers, and consultants to advance asphalt pavements as an essential part of sustainable transportation infrastructure that paves the way for thriving communities and commerce.
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