Leaders of state transportation departments across the nation say the coronavirus pandemic has left them facing an estimated $50 billion shortfall in funding needed to repave rutted and pockmarked roads, maintain bridges and otherwise prop up already shaky infrastructure. The budget gap is in large part the result of the lockdown the country entered in the spring to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. That sent demand for gasoline falling by hundreds of millions of gallons each day. And as gas stopped flowing into the tanks of Americans’ cars and trucks, the tax revenue from that fuel stopped flowing to state transportation departments.

More than $8.5 billion of work planned in 14 states and 19 localities — from major highway projects to local street repairs — has been canceled or delayed, according to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association. The organization is urging Congress to step in and provide state transportation agencies a $50 billion rescue package, after they were left out of the last round of stimulus funding that Congress approved in late March.

“There really is an urgency about finding direct assistance for state DOTs so they can continue to move forward with the projects they had planned for this summer,” said Jim Tymon, the executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO).

In recent weeks, demand for gas has rebounded as people take to the roads again, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, but demand remains well below where it stood last summer. Officials expect the recovery to be slow and unsteady as a surge of cases of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, leads governors to retrench on reopening plans and the deep economic pain from the first round of stay-at-home orders lingers.