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.
And those trillions of dollars targeted for “shovel ready jobs” ending up in the pockets of the union fatcats.
What a shame!
Pennsylvania is hurting. I’ll be praying for those assholes. Notice that once they cave in, then they get fixed. It’s like, “eh, fuck these people,” Jesus Christ, you’d think the Catholic church could pitch in a few bucks.
If Govt. (Federal and local) have not raided funds specifically raised for road maintenance from gasoline taxes and did its job instead of doing job of every bureaucracy that have ever existed (which is to make itself bigger and more important) we’d be fine.
Every single living President, Governor and Transportation Secretary who ever have spent any of dedicated money for other purpose should be brought to Court. Than we must demand that all dedicated funds can’t be touched no matter the “emergency” and all funds taken away returned ASAP by sell-off of the Govt. property (not by printing or borrowing).
Many of them seem to have been built BSUV (Before Sports Utility Vehicle)
The article points to both the cause and the solution to the problem, the cause:
Federal controlled programs.
The solution:
Free Enterprise.
We should end all Federal control of this, return it to the states. Perhaps “no strings grants” give the states time to raise the funds needed to accomplish the job.
If we make the Federal Government a small as a pimple on an elephant, the blood sucking waste fraud and corruption could be kept to a minimum…
The states will do a far better job in every area save national defense or border security.
Its time we return to a constitutional form of government, progressive expansion of government has not worked.
Any State where abortions are performed will be denied Federal Grants for highways and bridges. The abortion performers use the roads too.
Planned Parenthood accounts for 90% of road use.
This has been known for 30 years…
What has been done?
WAR.
sargasso #4
Thank you for pointing out the fact that people who drive SUVs have contributed much more to pay for these repairs by paying more taxes. I know this is what you were talking about because only an idiot would think that SUVs contribute more to the damage.
Only an idiot would see all the big rigs flowing over the US highways and think to blame the guy in the SUV for damaging the roads. Weather probably does 90% of the damage and heavy trucks do most of the rest, but I’m not stupid enough to blame the big trucks for driving on the roads that were built for them to use. Like most people I blame the pols who steal our money and pass it out with the only goal being getting elected to another term, not better or safer roads.
#6 – I’ve never seen an abortion performer. But then again I never get to attend the theatre.
Does kinda give new meaning to “Shovel Ready.”
Ha, ha.
“The states will do a far better job in every area save national defense or border security.”
Alf as someone who does work in state government I can truly say that if you really believe that. Then you are an even bigger idiot than even I give you credit for being, and that’s saying something. The states are given the primacy to do exactly what you’ve stated, they were and are given federal funds through grants, and they utilize their own tax base to supply even more money. Without a fail every state, and I mean every single one of them has managed to fuck it up. How do you think things made it to this point of failure. Its not just bridges or roads. It every single part of the infrastructure drinking water, sewer, roads, bridges, transit, energy, dams, etc. The current ASCE rating for Americas infrastructure is a D, with an estimated 2.2 trillion dollar price tag just to maintain what we have.
http://infrastructurereportcard.org/
You claim to be a conservative yet you would replace the federal government with an even more fucked up mess. You want to lower taxes? All giving it to the states would do is create a nightmare of overlapping regulation from each state. Do you follow the Missouri or the Illinois standards when building a bridge between the two? Who funds which part? What if one state backs out partway through due to budget problems? Where do the states get the extra revenue to provide all the services you would transfer to them? Kiss good bye all the clean water, air, soil, hazardous waste, and solids waste laws, who cares if Missouri pollutes the Mississippi its creating jobs in state, fuck the rest we got ours.
The only difference between state and federal government is the size of the budget, the size of the bureaucracy, and the size of the mistakes.
Gee So What==your entire argument, well stated btw, was that the Feds were naturally suited to do certain jobs, interstate highways fer instance, better than the States.
Then you conclude the Feds only make bigger mistakes.
Whats up with that???? Ohhhhh weeeee, Whats up wid dat? Whats up wid date. Repeat until clear.
Damn Republicans
Lie to KILL America
But must have your vote.
I am absolutely positively sure that the data this map displays for bridges in my area is incorrect. In fact incredibly incorrect in the case of the bridge a few hundred yards from my house. The build date is wrong by 22 years (1959 vs 1981) and I have the photographs to prove it. The entire deck of the bridge was replaced in 1992 and that is not mentioned either.
My guess is that the date listed is the date the original span was built and that would make sense for one of the revisions of the swing-out bridge that the current high bridge replaced. The traffic density looks suspiciously high as well though maybe their data was collected when a nearby road was closed.
The rating data may be correct (who knows) but the historic data for the bridges near my house is VERY outdated and incorrect.
S.
It seems that this data is suspect. Bridges that were constructed in the last three years are rated as a 9.
The traffic counts for the bridges I looked at do not match that data that the state publishes.
What is the source of these ratings and traffic statistics?
I am not sure if one can draw any meaningful conclusions from this data.
So deficit spending on paying local construction crews to fix up roads that will benefit the nations infrastructure and put dollars into the local economy is socialist – while paying it merchant bankers bonuses is capitalist
That’s why I did engineering – I’m too dumb to understand economics
#14–Sagrilarus==excellent comment. Makes me think we need a “Google App” that targets infrasturcture ((and everything else in society?)) and amass a data base that some intelligent crawler could review and rank order what needs to be evaluated by hooman eyes?
Skynet or Active Democracy? Which is SyFy?
Yea, verily.
My last statement while contradictory is also true. I suspect its an issue when a bureaucracy reaches a certain size. Its also a bit of an inside joke. I have worked in both city, state, and federal governments. In general the public assumes that because its larger the people in charge of the federal government are smarter than local, ie the president is smarter than a governor who is smarter than a mayor or if you prefer councilperson, state local representative, state federal rep. Time and experience has shown me that they are all pretty much idiots to some degree. I once had a councilman who had a thing about stray cats the feline not the band. I watched the council debate for an hour on what to do. Finally this councilman pops and says why don’t we just build a “cat house.” Everybody sat for a second. Than we rolled across the floor for a good ten minutes while he sat there bewildered. Somebody then explained to him the slang definition for cat house. It showed up in the council minutes as councilman X wants to build a cat house. I still chuckle about that. I recently watched two state reps try and pass bills to modify a law that went expressly against the will of the voters (by the way alf both were republicans) and were just as silly but carry the gravity of their office.
To really make a dent in the infrastructure issue will take both federal, state, and local input. In Missouri alone we have a 40+ billion dollar infrastructure shortfall just with wastewater needs. The entire 2012 state budget for everything will be around 23 billion. Anybody have some spare change?
Our crumbling roads and bridges is what happens when unions and governments conspire to give the contracts to the highest bidder.
As an addendum. Now that I recall the cat house meeting. That councilman was also a republican.