The Bulletin: Gridlock: Infrastructure On The Brink?

From The Bulletin:

Pennsylvania has more miles of state roadway than New York and all of the New England states combined.   Of the state’s 121,294 miles of roadway, 39,843 miles are the responsibility of the state to maintain, improve and modernize.  The state also owns responsibility for 25,335 bridges.  The average life of a bridge is 50 years.   Pennsylvania has 12,787 bridges that are at least that age and 6,938 that were built more than 70 years ago.  And, the state faces a $1 billion plus annual transportation infrastructure revenue shortfall that is growing and has potentially devastating consequences.  The expectation of the public is that there will always be roads and bridges, but the public has virtually no idea how road and bridge construction projects are funded or how the lack of adequate funding poses a very real threat to the state’s economy and their quality of life.