As Daylight Savings Time returned this weekend, work on important highly traveled roads cannot be too far off. Last week, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation announced its investment of $468 million to help municipalities across the Commonwealth maintain their roads and bridges.

These investments, which come from state gas tax revenues, help municipalities pay for things like snow removal and road repaving. “Our roads and bridges are vital to connecting Pennsylvanians with services and opportunity,” said PennDOT Secretary Mike Carroll. “Investments in municipal roads and bridges is a top priority for this administration and are critical to maintaining safe and connected communities.”

According to the commonwealth, there are nearly 121,000 miles of public roads in Pennsylvania. Over 2,500 municipalities manage approximately 78,000 miles of roadway and more than 6,600 bridges.

Under this administration, more poor-condition bridges were repaired than any other state in the nation and more miles of roadway were improved than any time in the past decade.

“The Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs commends the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation for recognizing borough governments as important participants in the statewide transportation network. These liquid fuels allocations are an essential funding component for preserving this vast network of locally maintained roads, which are so vital to the continued economic viability of this Commonwealth,” said PSAB Executive Director Chris Cap. “Borough communities across Pennsylvania will continue to maintain our portion of the local transportation network and we highly value our exceptional relationship with PennDOT.”

In addition to this distribution, local officials can take advantage of several options to help improve their infrastructure. For example, counties can implement a $5 fee for each vehicle registered to an address within the county and use the funds to help maintain their roads and bridges. Currently, 24 counties have implemented this fee and $293.8 million has been collected and distributed.

Warren County has not become a part of this effort. With complaints regarding road repairs, that $5 per motorist is a small investment for more convenient travel.

We know we already pay a high amount in taxes — especially through the fees at the pump. But that $5 is not too big a burden to take on.