Highway Bridges: Conditions and the Federal/State Role
"...Of the 600,000 public road bridges listed in the National Bridge Inventory,
roughly 12%, or 74,000, are classified as structurally deficient. This is, however,
roughly half the number classified as deficient in 1990. Given the I-35Wcollapse,
however, even this lower number of deficient bridges leaves Americans potentially
exposed to what some might consider an unacceptable level of risk. A policy
question is how fast can and should the remaining deficient bridges be replaced or
improved. At current annual spending levels, roughly $10.5 billion (2004 dollars at
all levels of government), the bridge investment backlog (in dollar terms) would be
reduced by roughly half by 2024. Reducing the backlog to near zero during the same
period would require an estimated annual spending rate of roughly $12.4 billion (in
2004 dollars)."