1. The
I-35W bridge in Minneapolis used by 141,000 daily, was first
deemed "structurally deficient" by state engineers in 1990, a
designation that requires repairs but doesn't mean the bridge is unsafe.
2. Nearly
one-quarter of the 600,000 bridges in the
U.S. are listed as structurally
deficient or obsolete, down from one-third in 1992, according to the American
Society of Civil Engineers.
3. One-third of some 40,000
highway fatalities every year result from substandard road conditions,
according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.
4. American Society of Civil Engineers warn that
one-third of major roads are in poor or mediocre condition.
5. According to the Texas Transportation Institute, congestion delays
in the 85 largest metropolitan areas cost the average traveler 47 hours in
2003, up from 16 hours in 1982.
6. The American Society of
Civil Engineers estimates that the improvements to the nation's
roads, bridges, dams, water systems and airports would need approx. $1.6 trillion. Out of this estimated figure, $188 billion will be needed over 20 years to repair deficient bridges.
7. Highway construction costs have risen 50% since
1999.
8. The federal Highway Trust Fund is projected to run a deficit of nearly $4
billion in 2009\
9. In 2005, highways
carried three-quarters of all freight by weight and 92% by value.
10. While the
Interstate Highway System comprises just 1% of public road miles, it carries
41% of the country's large-truck freight traffic.
11. Poor road conditions cost motorists
some $54 billion in repairs every year, about $275 per motorist.
12. The number of dams deemed
unsafe has risen by 33% to more than 3,500 since 1998.
13. About 1,500 bridges collapsed between 1966
and 2005, and about 60% of those failures resulted from the erosion of land
around the bridge support, according to Jean-Louis Briaud, a research engineer
at the Texas Transportation Institute.
14. The I-35W bridge stood 64 feet above the
Mississippi River and stretched 1,900 feet, but it had no
piers in the water. It was built with one 458-foot-long steel arch to avoid
interfering with river navigation. There are about 700 similar steel-deck truss
bridges in the country.
15. The worst highway bottleneck in the
country is the
Los Angeles
interchange of U.S. Highway 101 and Interstate 405, according to the American
Highway Users Alliance.
16. Americans spent an average of 81 minutes
behind the wheel everyday in 2001. Rush-hour motorists in the nation's largest
cities spend up to eight work days stuck in traffic each year.
Source: Timiraos, Nick. 2007. Aging Infrastructure: How bad is it? Wall Street Journal, August 4, pp. A5.