According to Yahoo, as the country recovers from the recession, the U.S. road construction industry continues to struggle. Overall spending on road, bridge, and tunnel construction in 2009 and 2011 has dropped by 4.4 percent, due to the lack of a long-term transportation bill and the completion of most American Recovery and Reinvestment Act-funded projects. Even though bridge and tunnel construction have kept strong in 2010 and 2011, road construction has plunged the entire market due to the lack of funding. Although SBI Energy expects total road, bridge & tunnel market to be up 0.6 percent over 2011 to reach a total of $76.4 billion for the year, the trends have seemed to continue through 2012.
The new federal highway bill (MAP-21) passed in July 2012 will help improve market funding to a certain degree. This legislation entails that states are more likely to start and fund medium scale projects (less than five year terms) with funding levels assured through Fiscal Year 2014. However, due to both state and federal governments refusing to increase gas taxes and implement user-based funding schemes, the long-term market prospects remain difficult to fund. The funding for these long-term projects will come other state sources such as state tolls, public-private partnerships, and state infrastructure banks. This will help grow the road, bridge, and tunnel industry, but at a very low rate through 2014.