COLUMBUS – Driving on bad roads costs every motorist in Ohio over $500 per year and, since 2011, commute times in the state have increased by 5.7%.
Those are some of the findings in a White House report released Monday in support of President Joe Biden’s sweeping $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan.
Ohio earned an overall grade of C-minus in the state-by-state breakdown of broken-down roads, bridges, drinking water systems and other facilities.
According to the White House Infrastructure Report Card, Ohio has more than 1,300 bridges and nearly 5,000 miles of highway in poor condition that would benefit from the proposal’s $115 billion national investment in road and bridge repair.
The plan will invest $100 billion dollars to expand broadband internet service, which is out of reach for 14 percent of Ohioans, according to Nick Bates, budget and tax policy director of the One Ohio Now coalition of more than 100 health and human service organizations, labor unions and advocacy groups.
“Infrastructure is more than just bridges and roads. It has to include things like broadband access,” Bates said. “I have two kids and watching them and their classmates struggle to learn digitally with the pandemic with having spotty internet connections and no internet connections made that task even more difficult.”
Highlights of the report:
-Ohio has 1,377 bridges and over 4,925 miles of highway in poor condition.
-6.2% of Ohioans live in areas where, by one definition, there is no broadband infrastructure that provides minimally acceptable speeds and 14% of Ohio households do not have an internet subscription.
-there is an estimated $683 million gap in what schools need for maintenance and improvements and 39% of Ohio residents live in a “childcare desert”
-16% of trains and other public transit vehicles in the state are past their useful life
-over the next 20 years, Ohio will require $13.4 billion in additional funding to ensure clean, safe drinking water
Source: White House Infrastructure Report Card
The plan also invests in clean-energy jobs, manufacturing, home energy and caregiving jobs.
Biden met Monday afternoon with a bipartisan group of lawmakers to show Congress he’s sincere about cutting a deal, but his reach across the aisle is intended just as much to keep Democrats in line as it is a first step in an uphill climb to any bipartisan deal.
The White House says the high-profile Oval Office meeting was just one piece of a fulsome attempt to win over GOP lawmakers. But even if it doesn’t succeed, it could prove useful by boxing in Republicans while helping to keep the widely disparate Democrats in line.