ConserveLand Blog

During the 1990s, the total number of acres developed in Pennsylvania increased by 54 percent, from 1,193,420 acres to 1,832,704 acres. (See 2005 State Land Use and Growth Management Report, DCED.) The infrastructure (roads, water lines, sewer lines, transmission lines, etc.) to support this developed footprint must also have grown substantially – probably not by 54%, but still a tremendous expansion.

Pennsylvania’s roads rank as being the worst in the country. And Pennsylvania hosts 5,646 structurally deficient bridges – more than the combined total for every other state from Virginia to Maine. I’ve heard explanations that blame our freeze-thaw cycle (which seems hardly unique to PA) or PennDOT construction standards (which seems plausible). I will propose another explanation.

The rapid expansion of PA’s developed footprint has occurred with minimal population growth in the state. (This is not to imply that stable population numbers are bad or that population growth is good. I’ll leave that subject for another day.) Essentially the same number of people have redistributed over a wider geographic area. So, the same number of taxpayers and ratepayers are paying for the maintenance of a greatly expanding public infrastructure. The result seems inescapable: Either taxes have to increase or needed maintenance doesn’t happen. We have seen both in Pennsylvania.

How high do taxes have to go and how much does our infrastructure have to deteriorate before we recognize as a society that more infrastructure either necessitates more expense to taxpayers and ratepayers or necessitates the neglect and abandonment of some infrastructure?

I suspect that taxes will have to rise far higher, that infrastructure will have to get much worse and that conservationists and allies will get quite hoarse before there is societal recognition. And then, of course, action on that recognition is a whole other hurdle.