Paving Market to Hit Bottom in 2012

ARTBA calculates its largest sectors to shrink 6%, with passenger rail declines offset by growth in freight rail and port investments.

The American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) calculates highway and bridge construction to contract six percent, to an estimated $72.6 billion in 2011 and remain flat through 2012. Subway and light-rail markets will be down even more.

ARTBA expects a 14% plunge in the value of pavement put in place in 2011, and calculates the industry will scrape along the $44- to $45-billion bottom until 2015. And while 2011 is shaping up to be a record year for bridge construction, the value of bridges put in place is expected to fall 10% in 2012 and remain flat in 2013, so the outlook is dark for more than 75% of ARTBA's transportation market.

"The main factors driving the decline in highway and bridge construction are not surprising: the winding down of infrastructure investment under the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA), continued weak growth in the U.S. economy, persistent state and local budget challenges, and a static federal-aid highway program," ARTBA's senior economist, Alison Premo Black, said in a December-12 webinar.

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