“Three years after a fatal bridge collapse in Minneapolis focused the public’s attention on transportation infrastructure; states increasingly are trying just to keep up existing roads and bridges instead of building new ones or rebuilding old ones.”
That’s the grim report from states around the country trying hard to find money for necessary improvements like maintaining roads and bridges, at the same time that state legislatures haven’t been bringing in the money to pay for such projects.
“These are frustrating times to try to build roads, bridges and other transportation infrastructure…But skittish state legislators are only a small part of the problem, eclipsed by the larger forces of the economic slowdown and congressional inaction.”
And don’t look for any seismic movement in Congress for things like adding to the Highway Trust Fund or another round of stimulus money to pay for transportation projects because no one there can agree on how to pay for these appropriations.