When I rolled out of bed Nov. 6, 2024, prior to opening my laptop or logging into any news sites, I was in that “Schrödinger’s cat” limbo of not knowing the country’s future. Were we doomed or not?
I’ll let your world view determine how you answer the question while we look at some predictions for 2025 that influence a contractor’s bottom line. As we take this issue to press, it’s time to look at New Year’s resolutions—or at least some forward-looking statements—and how current events could affect them.
At press time, President-elect Donald Trump had nominated Rep. Sean Duffy for U.S. Secretary of Transportation. The American Road and Transportation Builders Association (ARBTA) released a statement from its president and CEO Dave Bauer saying, “If confirmed, Rep. Duffy will be leading the Department of Transportation at a critical time, including continued deployment of record levels of federal highway, public transportation and airport infrastructure investments, and reauthorization of the surface transportation programs scheduled for 2026.”
Should members of the asphalt construction industry have concerns about Duffy’s potential for championing infrastructure investment? Let’s look at the highlights ARTBA posted on its website Nov. 19, from a succinct list of past performance.
We can easily learn that Duffy co-sponsored legislation in 2012 to move forward on construction of a new St. Croix River Bridge between Wisconsin and Minnesota. He also voted for the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21) legislation in 2012 and signed a letter in February 2015 urging by-partisan development of “a long-term sustainable revenue source for our nation’s transportation network as soon as possible.”
Maybe this is a sparse track record to excite construction company owners, but there are other signs of optimism for our industry from Nov. 5. For example, speaking with Tom Peterson, executive director of the Colorado Asphalt Pavement Association, revealed five of seven local tax measures proposed for funding streets and roads in the state were successful and will have a positive impact on the asphalt industry.
ARTBA also shared, nationwide, “[v]oters Nov. 5 approved 77% of 370 state and local ballot initiatives that are expected to generate $41.4 billion in new and renewed funding for roads, bridges, trails and rails, according to initial results.”
That’s the kind of momentum that proves people use their voices to get things done where they want it done in our nation. And we can see the hopefulness of that momentum in California’s asphalt industry.
Russell Snyder, executive director of the California Asphalt Pavement Association, prepared the 15th annual CalAPA “Better or Worse” survey, in which he tallied the “outlook” of over 2,600 of the state’s Asphalt Insider newsletter subscribers. What he found was optimism for the coming year with 55% of his respondents anticipating 2025 will be “better” than 2024; 13% anticipating it may be “worse” and 28% anticipating it to be “about the same.” His report in the Dec. 2, 2024, issue stated: “The jump in optimism was the largest year-over-year increase in the survey’s history, and many of the survey respondents referenced the outcome of the presidential election in their answers.”
Of course, that’s only one state in the union, but it’s a nice dovetail to the 77% of citizens-at-large voting to fund projects that will improve infrastructure, etc. While various media outlets continue to bombard us with doom-and-gloom and worry over sudden price spikes, we should keep in mind our industry is one that plans ahead and builds contracts with foresight. American-made steel, batteries, energy and more are on the game board again and I believe that is cause for optimism in the long-term. Economists forewarn the financial climate may worsen before it gets better, and I’m willing to accept that supposition. But the optimist in me would like to point to the second half of the equation. It’s going to get better.
Stay Safe,
Sandy Lender