Despite billions of dollars in federal, state and local funds directed toward the maintenance of existing bridges, 69,223 bridges — 11.5 percent of total highway bridges in the U.S. — are classified as “structurally deficient,” requiring significant maintenance, rehabilitation or replacement.
Two key problems persist: while Congress has repeatedly declared bridge safety a national priority, existing federal programs don’t ensure that aging bridges actually get fixed; and the current level of investment is nowhere near what is needed to keep up with our rapidly growing backlog of aging bridges.
jbenson2, if you took just 1 trillion dollars (you’re saying “trillions”) and divided it amongst the 801,000 union construction workers in the USA then it would be $1.2 million per worker. So if you’re going to make up bullshit facts then at least try to make them believable.
I read somewhere a few weeks ago that a lot of structures will not be as deficient once they receive an inspection.
The National Highway Fund is having to be bailed out due to lower revenues from the Federal $.184/gallon tax. This is due to less driving and more economical cars. New Jersey has the lowest state gasoline tax, approx. $.32 with California having the highest. Taxes are going to have to go up eventually. Oregon wants to tax based on miles driven. So fuel efficient cars are taxed the same as very inefficient cars. This is what is being lost in the arguments for more efficiency. The National Highway Fund isn’t getting enough money. The roads wear just the same. This should move the US away from cars.
US Secretary of Transportation LaHood was the US Rep. from Decateur, Illinois, the hometown of the headquarters of Caterpillar. There was going to be another round of “shovel-ready” work announced. It was going to focus on basically road resurfacing. Just a week before, Caterpillar had just announed that a new road grader plant opened in North Little Rock, Arkansas. A lot of the “shovel-ready” stimulus went to projects that had been dormant for years if not decades. The federal government let the states & localities decide on how to spend the stimulus dollars.
#18 So what – I know that in St. Louis the stormwater drains mix with the sewage pipes. I don’t think that is modern practice.
“Taxes are going to have to go up eventually. Oregon wants to tax based on miles driven. So fuel efficient cars are taxed the same as very inefficient cars. This is what is being lost in the arguments for more efficiency. The National Highway Fund isn’t getting enough money. The roads wear just the same. This should move the US away from cars.”
Start taxing electric cars, natural gas cars, etc.
These bridges will never be fixed. We are broke and can’t afford to fix them, and we are NOT gonna raise taxes on the ultra-rich who make $40,000,000 a year to pay for it!
Our infrastructure is falling apart in our cities, but it will never be fixed. We are broke and can’t afford it, and we are NOT gonna raise taxes on the ultra-rich to make $40,000,000 a year to pay for it!
We are not going to raise taxes on these people since they are the job engines for the U.S. economy. They own the factories and plants in the U.S. and provide jobs for all the poor people.
Oh wait, they own the factories and plants…..they got the Bush tax cuts…..and proceeded to shut down those factories and plants and move the jobs overseas or to Mexico putting millions of Americans out of work…..and the Republicans want to give them MORE tax cuts?????
Face it, folks, we are going to be driving on dirt roads, open sewers on the streets, and all sorts of fun stuff before long, because the “one dollar less than we take in” Republicans are going to make sure of it, meanwhile the ultra-rich will continue to live in their palaces while looking at the serfs out of their gilded windows.
why did they build it like that?
Seems longer then needs to be.
But perhaps the ground was to soft to make a more straight way.. :-/
Huge numbers of otherwise (mostly) sane people have fallen for propaganda that unions are E-E-E-E-VIL, that all taxes are theft, etc., propagated by those who are trying to destroy the greatest country in history. I wish they would all take an extended tour of Haiti (which they are trying to turn the U.S. into) and Somalia (more likely to be the result) to see what life is like with a weak or de facto non-existent central government. The next argument will be based on “The Divine Right of Kings” idea. (“We deserve to rule the slaves because God made us wealthy!”)
I wonder if it’s too late to emigrate…
50% true, 50% fear mongering. I’m more worried about our future generations. The empty buildings and run down ones will be EVERYWHERE!
This is interesting. I’m from 15370. This is a poor area of SW PA. The funny thing is one bridge says average of 5007 cars per day, and another down the road says an average of 20 cars per day. WTF!? Who’s double checking these guys work? Why can they get away with this?
No wonder PA has the highest percent of deficient bridges.
Now lets not mention the dam crises… It’s twice as bad.
#25 – the high raised part presumably crosses the main flow of the river and the navigation channel.
Where possible you cross this channel at right angles, it reduces the scouring effect on the pillars and the collision risk of shipping.
You may also need to curve the approach roads if the surrounding land is low and you need a long run to reach the bridge height at a reasonable grade. It can be cheaper to build off-shore on piles in shallow water than to build a long embankment on soft coastal tidal land.
Disclaimer: The pic is of the Oregon Inlet Bridge, on the Outer Banks of NC.
As a US Coastie, in my my younger days, we were responsible for all traffic,commercial and recreational, in and out of this very dangerous inlet. Winter crossings (commercial fisherman exclusively) were especially fun.
The main span of the bridge has to be rebuilt every decade or so, because of the shifting sands underneath.
The gas tax is a flat fee. It does not change with inflation. The last time my state (Missouri) changed it’s tax was in the early 1990′s with promises the Department of Transportation couldn’t actually meet. And they knew it too.
In effect, everyone is building new roads with fewer “real” dollars every year. What do you think that does to maintenance? New is sexy, fixing stuff is boring.
I’m a civil engineer and work with these things every day- wastewater mostly. We try and try to get people to realize what is coming, but no one likes to be told to eat their broccoli when you can have a tasty big mac.
Infrastructure maintenance generally comes last after operating budget and new stuff. You can’t very well show off some shiny new pipes underground, can you?
The infrastructure apocalypse is coming. It will be here in about 10 years.
#30, When you inflate the money supply and the wealth to perform a function remains unchanged, you eventually run out of dollars to perform the same function.
Let’s print another trillion dollars!
#30, The infrastructure apocalypse is coming. It will be here in about 10 years.
You need to see the movie Atlas Shrugged. It describes this apocalypse in visual detail.
I thank all those tea baggers (of both persuasions) that have insisted on cutting infrastructure maintenance so they can have a few more bucks in their pockets. The poor bastards are in such denial that THEY are the cause of America’s problems.
We have a local bridge that the link claims carries 7,200+ cars a day. I would have thought less, but I’ll buy that number. The bridge is on a Federal Highway so it also carries a lot of heavy truck traffic.
The bridge borders a municipal park and has a walkway beneath it. This makes inspection quite easy. The bridge deserves it’s “D” rating. The concrete has spalled exposing much of the rebar reinforcements. The rebar has totally rusted away in parts.
Four things contribute to degeneration of our highways and bridges. The first is truck traffic. They have a habit of breaking the base which in turn cause the sub-surface and surface also to crack. Car traffic has very little damaging effect on bridges or roads.
The second is the freeze and thaw cycle. Water that seeps into the cracks from both beneath and the top freezes, opening up the cracks even more. This with heavy truck traffic will accelerate the degeneration of the roadway.
Third is the use of salt on the roads to melt snow. This accelerates corrosion in bridges That corrosion also expands the concrete and causes spalling and degeneration of the concrete. This may be reduced by using zinc anodes.
The fourth is the natural subsidence that occurs from having a weight on the ground and erosion. Roads in swampy or wet sand areas often have this problem as well as bridge piers that don’t reach the bedrock.
There is a rather simple public choice explaination for why things are built and seldom maintained: elected officials are eager to show their constitutents that they have provided some new service to their districts which they can finance through debt(prefereably with their names stamped on the project), so they will seek to have new infrastructure project created; and yet when it comes to providing continued maintenance, well let’s just say that “Sen. Smith’s new layer of asphalt on I-95″ isn’t as sexy as the “Sen. Smith Memorial Bridge.”
Here is a speech by a well-known liberal on why the government doesn’t have any money for vital repairs.
http://tinyurl.com/3goru95
The average republican explanation.
http://tinyurl.com/3eyphg6
#38, Damn. It took you 20 minutes to respond. You’re getting slow in your old age
#39, Oh, and I agree with you, too!