So we have the highest gasoline taxes in the country here in PA, but we have the 2nd most crumbling bridges in the country. We also have the highest toll charges per mile in the country. This money is supposed to be used to keep roads and bridges from crumbling. It’s a conundrum. Where did all that money go? Maybe we should ask the numerous Department of Transportation officials currently occupying prison cells in our state prisons. Pennsylvania is corrupt to its core.
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.
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I wonder where Colorado is on that list? We’ve got potholes on the Interstates that will swallow small cars.
Don’t worry, the new toll lanes on I-25 south of Castle Rock to Colorado Springs will generate so much extra revenue that the pot holes will be filled with caviar. /sarc
Oh, wait …. coming fall 2022 …
But at least all the illegal aliens will get free housing ahead of Colorado citizens.
The word “potholes” has been commandeered and now refers(no pun intended) to weed shops. Damn hippies kept getting run over.
Remember when Rendell was pushing hard to make I-80 a toll road in PA to pay for improvements on I-95?
Several counties collaborated to build an industrial park with easy access to I-80 in the north-central part of the state. Several large businesses had signed leases or commitments. Target had broken ground on a multimillion dollar complex that was going to rival an Amazon warehouse.
Then it stopped. The leases and commitments were broken and Target abandoned the partially built facility and put it up for sale. In the 20 or so years since then the industrial park has sat vacant with the exception of an eye doctor who does cataract surgery on a assembly line scale while claiming the tax breaks meant for large employers. The rest of the industrial park is usually planted with corn, the stormwater catch basin is full of fisherman, and the access road is used as a walking track by the geriatric locals.
It is actually a very nice, but expensive park.
Where will the materials come from the steel products from I-beams to bolts to cables and pins not to mention the labor trained in heavy construction . While our boys are being trained to try out for girls sports and play video games a huge population of men that were “STEEL MEN” iron workers steel mill workers are all at retirement age tossed under the bus and there pensions were tossed overboard . The mills were dismantled that produced the products for infrastructure along with the tax base that paid for infrastructure . I wish I could add a couple zeros at the end of my bank account , I would be having my coffee on the balcony of my beachfront condo retired with security but no !
Oh forgot the design engineers will come in from India and the labor is flooding across the border as we speak and all the materials will come from the CHI COMS . Don’t worry our pretty little heads though the brown invasion is bringing more Covid strains and if that doesn’t wipe us out the vaccines will as our organs turn to liquid shit as a response .
Only a demented band of fools and lazy fucks could stand by and allow this death spiral continue !
Fuck It , I give it 2 more years at best and our past inaction will finally catch up with us . Bourbon time and it’s only 9:30 AM
FORGET ME NOT
engineers from India and a buncha hot hard-workin chinese girls to do the work young american guys can’t…. Just tryina think ahead….
They’ll only build about 10 miles of road for $1.9T.
When I was a kid here in PA many many back roads were gravel. Maintenance was a grader twice a year to smooth it out. Now they’re all paved and there are many times more roads. Drainage becomes an engineering mandate by the state. Culverts, erosion mitigation, etc. Maintenance costs multiply many times over once you pave and keep building. My old 64 pontiac liked gravel roads at 60 mph+ back in the day….
Transportation Sec’y Buttplug is all over this infrastructure issue like stink on shite, right?
Nothing to worry about…
Rest assured those bridges will be repaired or replaced by an Affirmative Hiree equal Opportunity, not the top shelf but a shelf somewhere, person/it/them/z/non-anything (whitey need not apply) wokeness.
Good luck with fixing so many bridges. I always marveled at how long many companies could milk bridgework. I would see bridgework and three years later be on the same road and the work looked like it was the same as before. there are construction zones that last for years.
I have now seen 3 VA parking garages built. I do not think it is possible to milk a project like those were. I know one of them was starting to be investigated when someone found out they weren’t getting their fair share of kickbacks.
— That’s because farmers drive their huge tractors and massive combines on those bridges.
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— That’s because truckers are delivering ethanol made by the farmers in Iowa.
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— That’s because West Virginia leads the world in moonshine … made from corn products grown by farmers in Iowa.
.
Yessir, America’s infrastructure issues are all related to farmers, Destroyers of Bridges and other shit.
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Fake News! Nevada is a fucken desert!. There are NO bridges in Nevada. But, if they had crumbling bridges, you can be damned sure farmers are involved.
I am sure lots of people would be clamoring for farmers to pay for their own bridges, long after the food stopped arriving at the grocery store.
I suspect Iowa tops the list because they simply have more bridges. They do a great job maintaining most of the State highways. I know 6 major bridges they improved over the last year and 1 completed new one. The problem is Iowa has thousands of miles of unimproved gravel roads to maintain an agricultural grid over the entire state and fewer farmers using them.
Should you, will you, ever fly United again??
United Airlines plans to hire 5,000 pilots over the next decade, with half of them being women and people of color ….. including trainees with no prior flying experience”
CEO Scott Kirby is all woke with diversity —- ” … diversify our pilot ranks and create new opportunities for thousands of women and people of color who want to pursue a career in aviation.”
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Co-pilot: “We’re about to crash! What did you do??”
Jamal: “I just needs me some pussy.”
Co-pilot: “What??”
Jamal: “Word! Dats why ah hit the switch there that says “flaps”.
Co-pilot last words: “But, but, LaQuisha gives you blowjobs every 5 min …. aaargh!!”
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Gone are the days when airlines hired mostly ex-military pilots with thousands of hours of flight time.
United Airlines. So woke. So diverse. So fucked ….
Me, posted above. TBP logged me out for some reason.
Trans Sec’y Pete Bootyjudge loves, loves, loves the book’s title and cover art. Kisses.