As U.S. road and transportation infrastructure ages, new challenges are causing transportation agencies and other stakeholders to find solutions quickly. The extreme heat of the 2024 summer was only the latest example of climate change wreaking havoc on a system strained by age. As we continue moving into environments where heat, weather events like hurricanes, and catastrophes like wildfires become more common and significant, finding solutions for managing aging infrastructure has become more crucial.
Of course, climate change is not a reversible or location-based challenge. Fortunately, new technological advancements have begun to open up possibilities for addressing that challenge and better preparing for the future.
How Climate Change Increasingly Affects Infrastructure
The impact of climate change on roads and other transportation systems has been increasingly discussed and studied in recent years. In a 2023 whitepaper, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency outlined three key ways the changing climate has affected our nation’s infrastructure:
1. How Climate Change Impacts Infrastructure Safety
Flooding has become more common, especially in coastal regions, but increasingly across the country. That flooding, in turn, can significantly impact roads. It erodes their underlying granular layers, destroying road sections and threatening the structure’s integrity. Mudslides tend to have similar effects.
At the same time, a lack of rain and extreme heat can adversely affect infrastructure like roads. Wildfires can create havoc on entire transportation systems, while heat can cause asphalt cracking and buckling roadway joints. Older roads are more susceptible to damage and are becoming more costly to replace.
Finally, extreme weather events can become devastating depending on the state of the infrastructure. Road signage washed or blown away by hurricanes is costly to replace. It can create potentially significant safety hazards that negatively affect the entire system. Even inventorying missing signage after such an event can become a significant undertaking.
2. How Climate Change Impacts Transportation Costs
In large part because of the above effects, climate change can have potentially massive impacts on transportation budgets. As a 2018 study by Harvard University researchers shows, we are already seeing increasing costs to maintain, repair, and replace roads and other systems. These add to an existing $1.2 trillion gap in existing infrastructure needs.
Of course, these costs are only considered as the direct budgets needed to manage the damage caused by heat and weather events that are increasing due to the changing climate. The economic costs of the direct and indirect damage range even further. It affects regional traffic and supply chains, as well as issues like urban areas with sewage systems that can’t handle increased flooding.
3. How Climate Change Reduces Crucial Access Provided by Infrastructure
Especially in public transportation, the EPA warns against the potentially significant adverse effects of climate change on access to potentially crucial and necessary social services.
The flooding caused by heavy rains can affect tunnels and underground rails. It can also block off crucial roads in rural areas with no alternative routes. With fewer transportation options than cities, even a single blocked access route can completely cut off access of vulnerable residents to grocery stores or pharmacies.
Flooding and road damage will have similar effects in this realm. Meanwhile, more immediate damage caused to the system around those roads, like signage, can also make access wayfinding more difficult. It exacerbates the issue for some of the most vulnerable residents of urban and rural areas alike.
Managing Aging Infrastructure Increasing Climate Change Threat
In a global trend like climate change, where treating the disease is far outside the scope of individual transportation agencies, finding solutions to prepare and treat the systems proactively becomes increasingly important. Fortunately, several solutions are being developed to help stakeholders address these challenges on the state, local, and municipal level.
Some researchers and firms are developing new road materials to withstand greater heat and flooding. Initial modeling suggests a lifetime of up to six times longer compared to traditional materials while producing long-term cost savings that even cash-strapped economies should be able to leverage.
Similarly, cities are beginning to experiment with more creative solutions. Among them is reflective paint. When applied to roads, it can reflect sunlight and heat away from the more vulnerable materials at and below the surface. Especially in warmer climates, this coating could have a massive impact long-term.
The most comprehensive solution, of course, lies in updating aging infrastructure before it breaks. Building resilience this way can go a long way toward being prepared for the next heatwave or hurricane.
That step, in turn, requires a comprehensive accounting of the state of infrastructure, which can be expensive. Comprehensive road and signage surveys traditionally take significant funds and years. Technology has made the process easier. It enables these surveys to be done more quickly while putting checks in place to ensure no pieces are missed.
Artificial and crowdsourced dash cameras, for example, can provide fast and comprehensive surveys of current roadway and signage infrastructure that can identify necessary fixes quickly and efficiently. The same technology can also help cities in disaster cleanup efforts by quickly finding damaged signs and implementing fixes that minimize the potential economic and access hazards of that damage.
How Blyncsy Can Help in Managing Aging Infrastructure
Blyncsy’s AI-enabled crowdsourced dash camera footage, for example, can be used by transportation agencies to submit warranty claims when their pavement or road paint doesn’t last as long as advertised as a potential effect of climate change. This can solve the budget issues that too many agencies can face when confronted with unexpected infrastructure damage when used the right way.
In many ways, climate change and its drastic effects on an aging infrastructure system have become the new reality for transportation agencies. Finding new ways to manage this new reality has to be a priority, with technology like Blyncsy at the forefront of preparing for the present and the future.
