Roads in unincorporated King County area are deteriorating, and adequate maintenance and improvements will cost the county at least an additional $260 million annually, a report released Wednesday by the county Bridges and Roads Task Force said.

The task force, composed of 21 members from municipal and private entities, convened last August to assess the condition of county roads, and recommend ways to secure improvement funding.

“The way I think about this is an opportunity to save money,” county Councilmember Kathy Lambert said, comparing the degrading quality of county-owned roads to a leaking roof. “We’re pretty much at the molding stage, and if we don’t get this fixed, we’re going to lose the whole system.”

Of the 3,700 total miles of bridges and roads in King County, 1,500 miles are owned and maintained by the county, including 181 bridges.

The county receives around $90 million annually, largely from the 250,000 residents living outside the county’s 39 cities, roughly 12 percent of the county’s total population.

The task force calculated County Roads department needs at least $350 million annually to maintain and improve its transportation infrastructure.

“Understanding that Road Services has taken drastic and significant steps in attempting to address the bridges and roads financial shortfall, it is obvious that the financial situation is now at a point where significant changes are needed in revenue generation,” the task force report read.

According to an independent study by BERK Consulting, the $90 million annual budget currently in county coffers allows for non-discretionary, safety, regulatory and some maintenance and preservation spending. Increasing this to $330 million would allow for full maintenance funding and mobility enhancements, while an additional $20 million annually would let the county increase capacity too.

According to county data, repairing the roads now would cost between $37 and $78 per square yard of road. If conditions are allowed to deteriorate further, it could cost the county up to $152 per square yard.

As the Great Recession struck around 2009, the King County Council began cutting full-time employment funding for Road Services staff, dropping from around 605 employees in 2009, to 351 in 2015.

Additionally, the task force found that of the one million daily trips on county roads, half of these trips came from cities or other counties. Around 40 percent of Snohomish County workers and around one-third of Pierce County workers commute to jobs in King County.

Due to lower property values in unincorporated King County as compared to cities, the low population and percentage of city drivers using county roads, it recommended more funding should come from the entire county, including cities.

“Whatever we come up with, the county has a large problem, but the cities have a large problem as well,” said Blake Trask, with Washington Bikes, who sat on the task force.

Traditionally, funding for county roads has come primarily from property taxes, a gas tax and grants.

However, Louise Miller, a former state representative on the task force, said as vehicle fuel economy improves, rural property values remain comparatively low and federal funds remain stable, the county must look at news was to raise revenue.

“We know that’s not the future,” she said. “You’re really not going to get there with the gas tax.”

As the greater Seattle area continues to grow, it is becoming more interconnected, King County Executive Dow Constantine said, with county and state-wide commerce relying more heavily on county roads.

“As the population has grown, and the economy has grown, we have truly become one metropolitan area,” he said.

Washington’s current tax scheme was implemented in the 1930s, and is unable to keep up with current needs, Constantine said.

“That system was fine when we had small settlements, separated by long distances,” he said.

The county will begin talks with King County cities through the Sound Cities Association before presenting revenue plans to the state legislature during the 2017 legislative session.

According to the task force report, these could include implementing a progressive, county-wide tax tied to inflation, a motor vehicle excise tax or tolling, among other recommendations.

Other suggestions included cities incorporating ‘orphaned’ islands of county roads in their borders or areas of planned growth, and securing additional federal funds.

Constantine believes investing now would be prudent.

“You cannot simply neglect your roads and infrastructure,” he said. “We must invest in infrastructure like those who came before us did.”