A Primer On How This Happened

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If you’ve driven many roads in Western Montana lately—especially in Ravalli County—you may have noticed that potholes, washboards, and crumbling shoulders are becoming increasingly common. In some places, your suspension system is getting a more strenuous workout than your gym membership.

That’s not your imagination. The problem has been building for decades.

For years, timber harvests helped fund local roads through a federal program that returned a portion of timber-sale revenues to counties. Those funds paid for road maintenance and bridge repairs without relying entirely on local taxpayers. As long as the timber economy was healthy, the system worked remarkably well.

Then the timber economy collapsed. Mills closed, timber sales declined, and the revenue stream largely disappeared.

The loss of sawmills also eliminated a less obvious benefit. Timber companies once maintained thousands of miles of forest roads because they needed them to haul logs. Roads got graded, repaired, and graveled because keeping them usable was good business.

When the mills disappeared, so did much of that maintenance.

Today, the U.S. Forest Service faces a massive backlog of repairs involving roads, bridges, culverts, and erosion damage. In many cases, agencies have concluded it is cheaper to close or remove roads than repair them. Nothing says “infrastructure solution” quite like solving a road problem by making the road disappear.

Meanwhile, counties like Ravalli face rising costs for fuel, gravel, equipment, and labor, while traditional funding sources continue to shrink. The math is unforgiving: maintenance costs go up while revenue goes down.

The result is simple. Roads are aging faster than governments can afford to fix them.

Or, put another way, Montana built a road system for a thriving timber economy, then watched the timber economy fade away while assuming the roads would somehow continue maintaining themselves. Sadly, potholes remain stubbornly opposed to volunteer work, and washboards have shown little interest in self-repair.

The consequences are becoming increasingly visible across Western Montana. Unless a long-term funding solution is found, many roads will continue their gradual transformation from transportation infrastructure into historical artifacts.

Footnote: Some people believe the only practical long-term replacement for lost timber-tax revenue is an increase in the gasoline tax, while others advocate different funding solutions. Our forests are now very vulnerable to fire, and well managed harvesting could kill two birds with one stone. Whatever side one takes, everyone agrees on one thing: potholes seem to be winning the debate so far.

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