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Nearly 56,000 Bridges Called Structurally Deficient (usatoday.com)
schwit1 quotes a report from USA Today: Nearly 56,000 bridges nationwide, which vehicles cross 185 million times a day, are structurally deficient, a bridge construction group announced Wednesday. The list is based on Transportation Department data. The department scores bridges on a nine-point scale, and while the deficient ones might not be imminently unsafe, they are classified in need of attention. More than one in four bridges (173,919) are at least 50 years old and have never had major reconstruction work, according to the ARTBA analysis. State transportation officials have identified 13,000 bridges along interstates that need replacement, widening or major reconstruction, according to the group. "America's highway network is woefully underperforming," said Alison Premo Black, the group's chief economics who conducted the analysis. "It is outdated, overused, underfunded and in desperate need of modernization." The five states with the most deficient bridges are Iowa with 4,968, Pennsylvania with 4,506, Oklahoma with 3,460, Missouri with 3,195 and Nebraska with 2,361. The eight states where at least 15% of the bridges are deficient are: Rhode Island at 25%, Pennsylvania at 21%, Iowa and South Dakota at 20%, West Virginia at 17%, and Nebraska, North Dakota and Oklahoma at 15%.
bridges that need to be widened to handle additional traffic are not "structurally deficient"
Just because a bridge is old doesn't mean it's unsafe. In Europe, a 50 year old bridge is likely to be called "the new bridge" and have people griping that it's not as good/pretty/whatever as the "old" bridge
how many of the other bridges are just fine as is, but could stand to be upgraded for various reasons other than that they are deteriorating?
once you start lying about things, how can we trust anything that you say?
David Lang
The five states with the most deficient bridges are Iowa with 4,968, Pennsylvania with 4,506, Oklahoma with 3,460, Missouri with 3,195 and Nebraska with 2,361....
Finding a new funding stream for road and bridge construction is a priority for state and federal officials because the gas tax that primarily funds the highway trust fund hasn’t kept pace with construction priorities as cars become more efficient.
Efficient cars aren't the problem. The problem is that legislatures can't keep their grubby hands off that money. Pennsylvania is second on the list, yet it has the highest fuel tax rate in the country, How can that be? Because about half the money is diverted away from road and bridge construction to projects like mass transportation and funding the state police.
Funny thing too, because I remember how Obama's stimulus plan was supposed to go towards this sort of issues. Although where I lived the money my town got for it was all spent on replacing the fully functional street lamps with new ones that looked nicer and a bike land literally no one has ever used due to being in rural Mississippi.
"If Iowa wants to sell you food or if you want to eat?"
There is a reason agriculture is at the bottom of the economic food chain. I can choose to buy my food elsewhere, it will be just more expensive. Iowa being unable to sell its food, will have basically nothing.
This is a common argument against urban america "You urbanites need our food!". The reality is, no they don't, but the rural areas surely need the technology, transportation, trade and manufacturing. The real world examples of this in action is Hong Kong and Singapore, neither of which can produce food on any scale, yet have no issues with feeding their populaces.
There is a reason the US and most of the developed world has steadily urbanized. In more recent history, see the mass migrations from eastern China to the coasts.
Well, maybe you Mississippi politicians should have chosen to spend their stimulus funds on more useful things.