1 out of 6 bridges in Texas are functionally obsolete

Thanks Obama!

 

Not an Obama fan, but im not sure what he had to do with this...

 

War on bridges!

 

It's a meme.

 

I'm pretty sure Obama defunded bridges.

 

Good thing my truck has 4 foot tires!

 

Make sure Mr. Tannin cleans it up real good for yas.

 

Need some quantifiable percentages on incident or collapse risk for this to mean anything. But don't want to understate how lucky I think we are down here in terms of transport infrastructure and engineering talent and education.

 

I was just joking. I don't know anything about American politics other than Obama is president.

 

We should raise the gasoline tax to pay for fixing both the bridges and the highway system of our state. Our road system in Texas used to be the envy of the world. Seriously. Not any longer. These things can't be repaired without paying for the repair. The gasoline tax in Texas hasn't been raised since 1991, 22 years ago. A full 25% of the fuel taxes we do collect is required to go to education. It doesn't even go towards fixing our roads and bridges. And why is that? Because the state government refuses to adequately fund education, so they deliberately rob funds meant to maintain our roads and bridges. Our state tax on both gasoline and diesel fuel is a full 10 cents below the national average, and this in a state without a state income tax. And people wonder why our state infrastructure is falling apart.

 

It's incredible that such a wealthy state in such a developed country has these problems.

Surely there are people for whom infrastructure and public transport provides an amazing opportunity to make new $$$? How do the public and private sector interact on these types of projects (infrastructure)?

 

too busy diverting taxpayer $$$ to blowing up bridges in other countries

 

there's a Modern Marvels (History Channel show for those who don't know) that's all about America's crumbling infrastructure.

Heard some bridge in Washington collapsed just this weekend.

c'est la vie.

 

1,372 of the 52,260 bridges in Texas (2.6%) are considered structurally deficient.
8,680 of the 52,260 bridges in Texas (16.6%) are considered functionally obsolete.

You keep using this word "functionally obsolete". I do not think that word means what you think it means.

What, cars and trucks can't drive across the bridge any more? It was meant for 4,000 pound cars and trucks and the newer smart cars, Fiats, and their like don't put enough weight on it?

I could be worried about the 2.6%, but making a thread about the 16.6% is a little silly.

 

That's weird, you guys aren't personally attacking da1 and are engaging the topic. Oh well, it's early.

I also would be interested to see stats on actual bridge failures. I remember last year, didn't one collapse and it was a national story? What constitutes a failure besides complete collapse? Also, for infrastructure projects, is there any kind of positive cost to benefit ratio economically? I've heard it said that dollars invested in NASA bring back more money to the economy ultimately but that doesn't stop us from not giving a crap about funding NASA.

 

Is there a link for any of these claims?

 

Perhaps if bridge failures manifested themselves more than once in a blue moon people would be rightly concerned.

OP seems to have no concept of risk analysis or factors of safety.

 

It's the cases where a bridge collapses after having been deemed structurally deficient that really irk people. I'm not an expert on this, but it does seem like there are a lot of things we could be doing to repair/upgrade our infrastructure, especially now with near-zero interest on government debt and a demand-driven recession.