Posted on 04/06/2021 8:37:46 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Back in August 2007, the dangerous and decaying state of America's infrastructure became a shocking reality when the I-35W Mississippi River Bridge in Minneapolis collapsed, sending vehicles crashing into the river below. 13 people were killed while another 145 were injured. In August 2018, a bridge collapse in Genoa, Italy, shocked the world with 43 people losing their lives. After that catastrophe, many countries, including the United States, started to seriously look at the state of their deteriorating infrastructure.
Last week, as Statista's Niall McCarthy notes, President Biden unveiled his plans for a $2 trillion investment in American infrastructure, describing it as "a once-in-a-generation effort". It would involve replacing lead piping, rebuilding 20,000 miles of roads and repairing the country's 10 most economically important bridges. Biden described the program as "unlike anything we have seen or done since we built the interstate highway system and the space race decades ago". He added that it would be "the largest American jobs investment since World War II".
After the announcement, a report from the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) illustrated the scale of the challenge in overhauling and repairing U.S. infrastructure by finding that more than 220,000 American bridges need repair work. 45,000 of them were deemed structurally deficient and Americans cross them 171.5 million times daily. At the current rate, it would take more than 40 years to fix all of them and cost an estimated $41.8 billion.
The good news is that the number of structurally deficient bridges has declined for the past five years but that trend has been tempered by more bridges being downgraded from good to fair condition.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Out of all U.S. states, Iowa has the most structurally deficient bridges, 4,571 or 19.1 percent of its total bridges. Pennsylvania comes second on the list with 3,353 of its bridges falling into the same category, along with 2,374 in Illinois.
West Virginia has the highest share of bridges classified as structurally deficient at 21 percent while Nevada has the lowest at just 1.4 percent.
This was all fixed by obama and biden back in 2009.
I was wondering how long it would take the shills to come out.
I really hope that when they build these bridges that they don’t just rush in and do a replacement. Instead they should invite architects, artists, people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, etc. to provide their input so that these bridges will be bridges to tomorrow and not bridges to the patriarchal, racist, homophobic, and transphobic past.
So if it will only cost $42B to repair or replace the structurally deficient bridges, then where is the the other $1,950B going to be spent?
Doesn’t anybody ask tough questions anymore?
No multi trillion dollar spending can repair our mentally deficient “POTUS” which is a whole worse problem.
/laughs in Western Maryland
The I 35 bridge was an engineering failure. The rest are targeted by the (ahem) bridge builders industry. Naturally they think every bridge in the country needs to be replaced. It’s called job security. But ask yourself, how many bridges do you know of that have actually “crumbled” in the last 20 years.
They ain’t kiddin’ about WV.
522 across the river is gamble, every time.
[are we *supposed* to see the seams and rebar sticking up like that?!?]
That’s what I thought too.
I recall 1.
Here comes the tsunami of media propaganda to buttress the Biden mega pork bill
RUSSELL BERMAN
DECEMBER 4, 2015
.....guess they ran out of money.
I-84 viaduct west of Hartford is a problem. They are thinking of tunneling it and fix the I-84/I-91 interchange/Mixmaster problem, freeing up lots of riverfront land in Hartford and East Hartford. I’d love to see that fix.
But are they shovel ready?
You have great vision, FRiend!
We should have black BLM bridges, pink feminist bridges, rainbow LGBTQ+ bridges, green-white-red Mexican bridges, plant-covered green bridges, Lego youth bridges...
“Naturally they think every bridge in the country needs to be replaced. It’s called job security.”
Just like coders say every app needs to be updated. It’s called job security.
“Here comes the tsunami of media propaganda to buttress the Biden mega pork bill.”
“We need good bridges to guarantee people can get their annual vaccinations without danger!”
That money is going to go to the same place that a trillion dollar Obama infrastructure went. Down the memory hole and into private politicians bank accounts, bribe money, DNC bucks, blackmail, illegal aliens, and foreign entities to be laundered and returned to Biden admin.
Everything will still be crumbling because who wants to sped good bucks on shitholes where the peons live.
So when the report came out 2007; Oregon took it upon itself to fix/repair all the bridges in the state.
So the State that acts responsible to a crisis get NOTHING; and the States who act responsibly get Billions.
And people wonder why the States do not fix anything.
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