NSW roads 'face $3.2bn maintenance bill'

NSW councils could be facing a backlog of more than $3 billion in road maintenance funding.

The NRMA says lives will be lost if road upgrades are not made and has called for a greater contribution from fuel taxes to help regional and local councils fund maintenance.

"The damage caused by last month's devastating `storm of the century' will impact heavily on road surfaces and exacerbate councils' already hefty maintenance backlog," NRMA president Kyle Loades said in a statement on Thursday.

A new report from the NRMA shows councils in both regional areas and greater Sydney are finding it difficult to maintain their roads.

NSW councils face a maintenance bill of about $770 million, but the NRMA estimates the total backlog needed to bring local roads to a satisfactory condition is $3.2 billion.

Its figures show that councils across the state receive about $630 million in road maintenance grants from the federal and state governments.

Last year, the fuel excise raised $15 billion, but only about $6 billion was spent on the nation's roads, the NRMA said.

The report said the situation had improve since 2014, with the size of the state's funding gap falling by about $600 million.

According to the NRMA, the NSW road network is about 184,859 kilometres long, of which 146,000km are classified as local roads, funded and managed by local councils.