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# Roads crumble despite billions
- URL: https://www.redeyebr.com/louisiana-roads-bridges-crumbling-backlog-federal-money/
- Published: 2026-08-12T13:37:57.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-12T13:46:46.000Z
- Description: Billions in new federal highway money haven't slowed Louisiana's road and bridge backlog. It's more than doubled since 2021.
- Author: JR Ball

Louisiana's transportation department said its road and bridge backlog was **$15 billion in 2021**, the same year Congress opened a new stream of federal highway money. Four years and billions of dollars later, the number has more than doubled, to **$33 billion**.

**Why it matters:** More federal money hasn't meant fewer bad roads—Baton Rouge drivers are paying into a system that's falling further behind, not catching up, no matter how much flows through it.

**Bad math:** The number has only moved one direction since 2017.

- **2017:** A state task force put the backlog at $13 billion, plus $16 billion more for big projects like widening I-10 in Baton Rouge.
- **2021:** Then-DOTD Secretary Shawn Wilson said the state's fuel tax, unchanged since 1990, left a $15 billion hole that "will never be eliminated" without new revenue.
- **2025:** The American Society of Civil Engineers put the number at $24 billion for roads alone and $33 billion combined with bridges.

**Criticism to credit:** The 2021 law behind that new money—passed under President Joe Biden with Sen. Bill Cassidy's help—drew opposition from much of Louisiana's Republican delegation. That hasn't stopped them from touting what it paid for.

- Gov. Jeff Landry celebrated the new I-10 Calcasieu River Bridge and a $1.3 billion broadband grant, both funded in part by that law, without mentioning where the money came from.
- Reps. Julia Letlow, Steve Scalise and Clay Higgins voted against the bill in 2021; Letlow later applauded a $10.5 million grant it funded for her district.
- Cassidy, who negotiated the bill's passage and was blasted by locals for working with Democrats, said rather cheekily: The same critics are "showing up for the ribbon cutting, trying to claim credit for that which they opposed and which I negotiated."

**DOTD's own warning:** The department's 2022 [asset management plan](https://dotd.la.gov/media/pg1jvkmf/ladotd-tamp-2022-final-issued.pdf?ref=redeyebr.com) doesn't project a fix.

- More than 20% of bridge deck on the National Highway System is projected to be in poor condition by 2034.
- Even a $200 million annual funding increase wouldn't be enough to change that, the same plan found.

**No independent check:** A Pew Charitable Trusts report published in late July compared all 50 states' road and bridge [funding gaps](https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2026/07/28/how-large-are-states-budget-shortfalls-for-roadway-maintenance?ref=redeyebr.com). Louisiana wasn't in it—the state hadn't reported enough data for Pew to calculate where it stands.

**Say nothing:** Rodney Mallett, DOTD's public information officer, did not respond to *RedEye*'s requests for comment.

**The bottom line:** The federal law behind Louisiana's latest infusion of highway money expires this year, and DOTD's own numbers say the shortfall keeps growing regardless, leaving the state to decide whether it starts showing its work, or keeps asking taxpayers to trust a number nobody outside the department can check.

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