RTC: $1.4 billion regional road maintenance shortfall; proposes smart traffic management and new revenue options

Bill Thomas, executive director of the Regional Transportation Commission of Washoe County, told the Sparks City Council on Oct. 28 that the region faces an estimated $1.4 billion shortfall in road maintenance over the next 10 years and outlined options to stretch existing dollars and find new revenue.

The RTC presented two recent studies: a comprehensive maintenance assessment that quantified the backlog and a policy study by the Gwynne group examining revenue impacts from increased electric vehicle adoption. Thomas said the region’s combined resources — RTC plus city and county contributions — are not sufficient to maintain the regional roadway network and that backlog and network decline are the likely result unless new choices are made.

The maintenance study, the RTC said, modeled the full scope of roadway upkeep — from asphalt repairs to street sweeping, snow removal, signing and striping — and found an approximately $1.4 billion gap between projected needs and currently available funds over 10 years. Thomas said federal funding tends to favor capital projects over recurring maintenance, so the city and region…