The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) released its 2025 Infrastructure Report Card on December 12, 2025, revealing that America's infrastructure is showing its clearest signs of improvement in decades. The nation's overall infrastructure grade improved to a C from a C- four years ago, marking the first time no sector received a D- grade since the report was introduced in 1998.
However, ASCE cautions that this momentum is driven largely by short-term funding increases rather than long-term certainty, leaving aging and climate-exposed systems vulnerable if investment slows when the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act's (IIJA) authorizations expire in 2026.
Nearly half of the 18 evaluated infrastructure categories improved in the 2025 analysis. Gains reflect the early impact of the 2021 IIJA and related federal programs that began distributing funding in 2022. Notable improvements include:
At the lower end of the spectrum, several critical infrastructure categories remain underfunded:
Even if current funding levels continue, ASCE estimates a $3.7-trillion investment gap over the next decade to bring infrastructure systems into a state of good repair. Achieving and maintaining a state of good repair across all 18 infrastructure categories would require $9.1 trillion in investment from 2024 to 2033. Public and private funding is projected to reach about $5.4 trillion over that period if recent federal investment levels hold.
ASCE emphasizes: "Considering the extensive time it takes to study, design and complete projects, sustained investment at current or higher funding levels will be necessary for infrastructure to continue to improve."
The most significant threat to infrastructure progress is the 2026 expiration of IIJA authorizations. ASCE warns that uncertainty over when projects are bid, how they are packaged, and whether they proceed could delay delivery, fragment scopes, and raise long-term costs.
Across sectors, agencies are already responding to this uncertainty by:
A defining performance factor across nearly every infrastructure category is climate-driven stress. Extreme weather events caused more than $180 billion in damage in 2024, reinforcing ASCE's conclusion that resilience investments—while increasing upfront costs—reduce long-term financial and operational risk.
This shift is expanding scopes, schedules, and bid pricing across multiple sectors. Life-cycle cost analysis is increasingly embedded in funding criteria and procurement decisions, particularly for water, transportation, and energy assets exposed to flooding, heat, and wildfire risk.
A persistent workforce shortage across engineering, construction, and inspection roles compounds the challenge. Even as funding has increased, many owners lack sufficient in-house staff or contractor capacity to deliver projects at scale, widening the gap between infrastructure complexity and available labor and technical resources.
For construction professionals and firms in the Rochester area and nationally, the 2025 ASCE Report Card signals both opportunity and urgency:
The report evaluated 18 infrastructure categories including aviation, bridges, broadband, dams, drinking water, energy, hazardous waste, levees, public parks, ports, rail, roads, schools, solid waste, stormwater, transit, wastewater, and waterways. The improvement across categories, while modest in some areas, demonstrates that sustained federal investment can drive measurable progress.
Source: American Society of Civil Engineers, 2025 Infrastructure Report Card, published December 12, 2025. Engineering News-Record, December 12, 2025 - "Infrastructure Gains in New ASCE Report Card—but Progress Hinges on Post-2026 Funds" by Bryan Gottlieb.
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