Though it may be another year before the full effects of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act are felt nationwide, the $305-billion funding measure enacted in December 2015 already has provided many of the sector’s contractors with something they have not experienced in quite a while: a sense of stability.
Having five years of guaranteed federal dollars is expected to help state DOTs shed, at least somewhat, the past decade’s largely patchwork approach to project implementation. Many states already had picked up the funding slack through their own gas-tax increases and other initiatives.