Why American roads all go to pot.

• Author: Dance, Betsy
• Position: Highway construction

When it comes to

building highways, Europe is kicking our asphalt

Driving down New York City's hubcapstrewn FDR Drive is a little like bungee jumping, that masochistic sport that requires you to tie yourself to a huge rubber band jump off a high bridge, and pray furiously until you ricochet back up. Only bungee-jumping is more controlled. The FDR's drivers don't always have the benefit of knowing when they're going to plummet. They can't always brace before the car plunges into the abyss, but they usually know what hit them. Or actually, what they hit: a pothole.

Funny thing, though-millions of local, state, and federal dollars were poured into the FDR in the eighties. It's been closed for major improvements twice in the past five years. But like the rest of New York's roads, the FDR Drive somehow just keeps falling apart. In fact, in the next decade, state officials say, more roads will be closed for restoration than will be open.

Unfortunately, flooring it out of state won't help. Despite an annual outlay of nearly $80 billion, the federal government now classifies one third of America's roads as deteriorated. Washington, D.C.'s roads are in such a sorry state that, despite a repair budget that's quadrupled in the past decade, the city still boasts an astonishing $1.6 million backlog in street repair projects. And the cost of bad highways doesn't stop there. Traffic congestion, caused and aggravated by endless road repairs, costs this country $30 billion each year. That's 30,000,000,000. And those same people who can't get to work on time are stuck in cars belching noxious gases that are poisoning our air.

Our roads are allowed to get rocky by a remarkable web of disincentives for American road builders-in fact, federal policy virtually drives roads to ruin. Here's how it works ... or doesn't.

When roads need to be built or substantially repaired, states contract the jobs out to industry bidders. But here's the catch: The best bidder never wins, just the cheapest. Let's say Sid mixes his cement with durable, non-porous polymers-the best in tarmac technology. His materials cost a little more, but his roads endure decades of stress and salt and ice. Meanwhile, Mack mixes his cement with run-of-the-mill, crack-prone, porous aggregate. Mack's cement is cheaper, at least before maintenance costs kick in, so he is awarded the multimillion dollar road contract. But if the road falls apart-hell, if it kills a dozen drivers while caving in-there's nothing the government can do. The way the federal law...