Planning a government budget — large or small — requires a little clairvoyance.
Not only does it demand looking back at the history of what was needed, but there also has to be a crystal ball to anticipate the unpredictable.
One of the most prominent examples is road maintenance.
Clear, usable roads are necessary for everything from economy to education to emergencies. They need to be traversable in winter, which means road salt and functioning plows. They need to be repaired in good weather, which means asphalt and heavy equipment.
Planning ahead is smart. It also can be almost impossible when trying to account for things as unpredictable as the weather, foreign policy and war.
This year is a good example of how hard that can be. First, there was the salt. This winter required a lot of it, and many municipalities burned through their projected allotments faster and earlier than expected.
Then came the oil.
After the start of the war with Iran, gas prices climbed. That was expected. The cost of a barrel of crude oil shot up higher when the Strait of Hormuz — a crucial choke point in international transportation — became a centerpiece of the conflict.
How does that impact your local road crew? The same way it affects you at the grocery store — or any store, really. The cost of oil hits the cost of everything.
But anyone paving a road isn’t just dealing with the high price of gas. They’re facing the increased price of asphalt, the sticky black material that includes bitumen, the liquid component made from crude oil.
The cost of asphalt has gone up about $5 per ton. That might not sound that bad for 2,000 pounds of material. The problem is in the volume of asphalt required to do a project.
Say you were paving your driveway. The average residential driveway still demands a lot of material — up to 15 tons. That’s an increase of $75 on asphalt alone.
Now imagine you aren’t just paving the area from the curb to your garage. You’re paving large swaths of road.
In 2024, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation improved 5,485 miles of road. Between Jan. 1 and April 30, it paved 94.52 miles.
The cost of a mile of road can vary based on width (the number of lanes) and depth (thickness to accommodate traffic). A smaller local road could require about 400 tons per mile. A heavily traveled highway could be 1,200 tons.
The $5 increase in asphalt cost is an increase of up to $2,000 per mile for a small road and as much as $6,000 per mile for that more trafficked route.
“Our whole industry is getting hit. Everything is escalating. Everyone is passing along their costs. Our paving season is going to be screwed,” said Richard Hudock, president of Derry Construction Co.
Some municipalities are not expressing concern just yet. The cost of the salt earlier in the year forced some to scale back their paving plans, which might be a blessing in disguise.
That will depend on whether, as Tom Bryer of T&H Paving of South Greensburg hopes, the cost of asphalt corrects over time.
It is important to remember that paving isn’t just something that municipalities do to fix bumpy roads. It’s an important part of other things, like sewage projects and water line repair. Those can be planned ahead, but they also are often sudden emergencies that cannot be put off.
All of this points to state and local governments juggling needs versus costs to accommodate forces beyond their control. It comes at a time when the state is planning for its next budget, which should go into effect July 1.
There are a lot of potholes in even the smoothest road. And Pennsylvania doesn’t have a lot of smooth roads.