Center Square Washington: State highway system in ‘early stages of failure’

A Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) Deputy Director addressed the Senate Transportation Committee last week and told them, “We’ve got the state highway system in early stages of failure,” due to a lack of preservation and maintenance, according to Center Square Washington.

But there are even more underlying problems:

Another dilemma facing WSDOT is its equipment, which ranges from snow plows to surveying tools and, in the future, electric vehicles. According to Bakotich, 29% of their equipment has passed their end of useful life, while 35% is considered to be in “poor condition.”

There’s also the facilities and maintenance sheds WSDOT uses to store their vehicles and equipment. Bakotich said that 40% of the agency’s buildings are 51 years or older.”

“So they’re obsolete functionally; we make it work,” he said. “There’s lots of things that still need to be fixed…, but we don’t have the funds to fix all the things.”

Anyone who has crossed a pass in the dead of winter can tell you how important it is that we have functional snowplows. And those snow plows need facilities to be maintained and repaired. This equipment is only getting older and ignoring the problem is not going to make it go away.

In the legislative session next year, lawmakers need to quit kicking the can down the pothole-filled road and prioritize keeping our highway system from going the way of the ferries.