The University of Alabama’s Education Policy Center released their latest issue brief Tuesday, detailing the disparities in transportation infrastructure facing Alabama’s Black Belt.
“Roads determine whether residents can reach jobs, schools, and health care; water systems affect whether communities can maintain basic public health; and transportation networks influence whether businesses thrive,” write the brief’s authors. “Nowhere in Alabama are these connections more visible than in the state’s Black Belt, a historically rural region marked by persistent poverty, aging public works, and limited local economic opportunities.”
Per the EPC’s research, Alabamians living in the Black Belt and other rural areas of the state must make longer commutes at a disproportionate rate due to inadequate roadway infrastructure. While recent initiatives like the Rebuild Alabama Act and the West Alabama Highway project have shown a willingness from state and local leaders to invest in rural transportation improvements, the authors highlight ongoing tensions that threaten these priorities.
“The long-term viability of the [West Alabama Highway] project remains a point of contention,” the authors note. “Critics like House Pro-Tem Chris Pringle (R-Mobile) have raised alarms over the lack of federal matching funds. Pringle contends that the next administration will likely ‘shut that project down,’ asserting that the continuous draw on the state’s 2019 gas tax revenue is unsustainable for the state’s broader infrastructure budget.”
Investment in rural transportation infrastructure is also at odds with other proposals to allocate funding toward urban highway projects, namely the “Go Wide I-65” initiative spearheaded by Lieutenant Governor Will Ainsworth.
“In addition to broader debates over how transportation funding is allocated, senior state leaders have actively contested the prioritization of highway projects, often reflecting an urban–rural split in infrastructure preferences,” the authors write. “Lieutenant Governor Will Ainsworth, for example, has publicly criticized the use of state funds to back large rural corridor projects like the West Alabama Corridor. Ainsworth has described this plan as ‘the biggest abuse of taxpayer funding in Alabama history,’ arguing that the project lacks sufficient federal matching funds and diverts state bonding capacity from other needs.”
“Instead, Ainsworth has made the expansion of Interstate 65, a major north–south interstate that carries heavy traffic through Birmingham, Montgomery, and Mobile, a central focus of his infrastructure agenda,” they add.
The authors go on to emphasize that transportation infrastructure is not just a “roads” issue, highlighting the essential role which roadways play in connecting Alabamians to employment, education, healthcare and other essential services. While Black Belt residents need to travel across counties for employment at a similar rate to their non-Black Belt counterparts, they must do so on roadways with lower traffic capacity, less safety upgrades and fewer redundant connections when corridors fail.
“Commuting data suggests that Black Belt infrastructure functions as a regional lifeline, linking residents to employment centers beyond county borders,” the authors write. “Therefore, evaluating infrastructure in the Black Belt should focus not only on pavement conditions but also on whether corridors provide safe, efficient access to the job markets that residents already rely upon.”
The report finds that Black Belt residents also tend to make longer commutes, with 21 percent of workers commuting 45 minutes or more, compared to roughly 15 percent of workers statewide. The authors argue that this data underscores the vital nature of robust transportation infrastructure in the Black Belt, as limited local employment opportunities require residents to travel further for work.
“Taken together, these findings reinforce that highway connectivity in the Black Belt functions as a critical economic lifeline, linking residents to employment opportunities beyond county boundaries and underscoring the importance of sustained investment in corridor improvements,” they write.
During a virtual presentation of the brief, members of the EPC and the Alabama Mobility and Power Center, AMP, also stressed that transportation investment in underserved areas like the Black Belt could also improve economic development in the state by providing companies with more reliable access to the state’s workforce.
“From the economic development perspective for the state, when they try to attract new companies, new projects and investments into the state, workforce accessibility–and therefore access of workforce through transportation–is very important because if workforce can access transportation, then it’s implying workforce mobility and lower operational risks and vice versa,” noted Olga Bredikhina, a business intelligence manager with AMP.
The brief’s authors go on to make three policy recommendations for how state and local leaders should approach investing in transportation infrastructure moving forward.
First, the authors advocate for prioritizing “need-based transportation funding allocation” over simply investing in roadways with the highest traffic volume, stressing that highways in the Black Belt “function as essential economic infrastructure rather than optional conveniences.” They argue that agencies including the Alabama Department of Transportation, ALDOT, should also take travel-time burden, commuting reliance and safety risks into consideration when considering infrastructure investments.
Secondly, the authors argue in favor of expanding grant-based funding mechanisms to increase rural communities’ ability to finance infrastructure investments.
“Policymakers should expand grant-based funding mechanisms to better support rural communities with limited tax bases and borrowing capacity,” they write. “Traditional loan-based approaches often fail to meet local needs in the Black Belt, where structural constraints such as non-permeable soils, dispersed populations, and limited local revenues increase project costs. Expanding grant-heavy funding models, building on programs such as ATRIP-II and ARPA infrastructure investments, would enable counties to pursue long-term capital improvements while reducing fiscal strain on local governments.”
The authors’ third and final recommendation is to improve technical assistance and local capacity to “help Black Belt counties navigate grant applications, engineering requirements, and compliance
processes.” They advocate for the formation of partnerships with regional planning commissions, universities and federal agencies to “ensure that available resources translate into completed infrastructure projects rather than unrealized opportunities.”
Following the brief’s publication, Tony Harris, ALDOT’s chief of communication and government relations, responded to its findings in a written statement, touting the benefits of the Rebuild Alabama Act and the West Alabama Highway project.
“Alabama’s transportation network must serve every region of the state, from rural communities in the Black Belt to major interstate corridors,” Harris wrote. “The Rebuild Alabama Act created the first sustainable, long-term funding source in decades to address both needs, allowing Alabama to move forward with critical improvements that had been delayed for years.”
“For rural Alabama, projects like the West Alabama Highway represent transformational investments that will strengthen safety, mobility and economic opportunity across an entire region,” he continued. “Much of West Alabama has historically lacked direct access to four-lane highways, making it more difficult for residents to reach jobs, health care and education, and harder for communities to compete for new industry. By creating a four-lane, north-south highway connecting communities in rural West Alabama to the interstate system, the West Alabama Highway will help address those longstanding gaps and provide safer, more efficient travel.”
Harris also spoke in support of the “Go Wide I-65” initiative despite the apparent funding tensions between the project and rural investments like the West Alabama Highway. He noted that ALDOT is pursuing a “balanced strategy” that seeks to fund both rural and urban transportation advancements alike.
“At the same time, ALDOT continues to advance improvements on major interstate routes, including Interstate 65, which serves as Alabama’s primary north-south freight and passenger corridor,” Harris stated. “Ongoing projects to add capacity, modernize interchanges and improve safety ensure that Alabama’s interstate system remains strong and capable of supporting continued economic growth.”
“Together, these investments reflect a balanced strategy: strengthening rural mobility while maintaining our high-capacity corridors,” he added. “Alabama’s transportation system works best when it connects every community—large and small—to opportunity.”
