Infra Insight Blog

We all know that our infrastructure is aging.  Considering how hot the issue of transportation funding (or lack thereof) has become, it is almost impossible not to see or hear something on this topic daily.  That being said, Transportation for America has provided a new way for us to fixate on the state of disrepair of our nation’s bridges – an interactive map.

The map is color-coded and uses green to mark states that are more-or-less maintaining their bridges.  A special hats off to Florida and Nevada, which rank 50th and 51st respectively in the list of disrepair.  In contrast, the map uses a deep, ominous red – something akin to a scarlet letter - to mark states whose transportation dollars just aren’t going far enough.  Pennsylvania and Oklahoma get the dubious honor of being coded red, with 26.5% and 22.0% of their bridges being deficient respectively.

Once you have taken a look at how the states stack up against each other, you may want to click on the Near You button above the map.  This allows you to insert any address and locate deficient bridges within a 10-mile radius.  Depending on where you look, this can be relatively shocking.

Whether you are looking at the interactive map or using the Near You function, you should note that if you scroll down Transportation for America has provided a more detailed chart showing the percent of bridge traffic going over deficient bridges.  This twist on the information can be quite interesting.  For example, though California is only in 18th place on the overall list of deficient bridges, the chart shows that California has the 3rd highest rate of total bridge traffic going over deficient bridges (indicating that California’s deficient bridges are in high demand).