Showing posts with label highways. Show all posts
Showing posts with label highways. Show all posts
Saturday, May 15, 2021
We Need the American Jobs Plan
Hoping everyone is on board with President Biden's American Jobs Plan. Americans need it, America needs. Heck, look at Missouri alone. This is from USA Today, June 29, 2013. Missouri was ranked 10th worst, overall, in list of states with bad bridges.
Since 2011, Missouri may have made more strides fixing its bridges than almost any other state in the nation. Although 3,502 of its 24,072 bridges are structurally deficient, this is actually 640 fewer than in 2011. In St. Louis County, just 3.9% of the 865 bridges received a subpar grade. Those 58 bridges in need of repair carry an average of 789,000 vehicles per day. However, the bridges in many other parts of Missouri remain in a serious state of disrepair. In five counties, more than 30% of the bridges are structurally deficient. Phone your Senators, folks. Sure, they're Republicans and it likely won't matter but hey, we have to try.
Thursday, April 4, 2019
Missouri's Sad State of Infrastructure
I've written about Missouri's sad state of infrastructure here before. Our roads and streets and bridges, not just here in Kansas City but statewide.
It seems clear, with Republican-led government, on the state or national level, either one, we--read: they--just don't want to fund the basics like education or, again, infrastructure. Millions and billions for perpetual war in foreign countries but far too little for our own nation.
So along comes this study:
Check out these statistics from the article:
More than 47,000 bridges in the United States are in crucial need of repairs, says the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, or ARTBA. The group, which advocates for investment in transportation infrastructure, analyzes data from the Federal Highway Administration and releases an annual Deficient Bridge report.
This year's report, released Monday and based on 2018 data, found:
- There are 616,087 bridges in America
- Of those, 47,052 (nearly 8%) are "structurally deficient" and need urgent repairs
- 235,020 bridges (38%) need some sort of repair
- Americans cross structurally deficient bridges 178 million times a day, including such landmarks as the Brooklyn Bridge and the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge over the San Francisco Bay
- The average age of a structurally deficient bridge is 62 years
The states with the highest number of compromised bridges are:
Iowa (4,675)
Pennsylvania (3,770)
Oklahoma (2,540)
Illinois (2,273)
Missouri (2,116)
We're one of the worst, one of the top 5 states with bridges in poor repair in the nation.
Meanwhile, this is our current status:
“President Trump has said repeatedly that he wants to upgrade America's crumbling infrastructure. Even though some Democratic leaders have expressed a willingness to work with him on a plan, little progress has been made on the issue.”
We need to demand more, much more from our legislators, in Jefferson City and Washington, both.
We've been in Afghanistan, either blowing things up or building schools for 18 years.
Even Chinese billionaire Jack Ma has pointed this out.
What part of that makes sense?
Let's get back to taking care of the important things.
At home.
We can't be strong over there if we're weak over here.
Links:
Links:
Thursday, November 8, 2018
Shame On You, Missouri, Missourians
We rejected the gas tax? To fix, improve, repair our roads?
I didn't realize the proposed gas tax that was on the ballot this week failed until today.
The Kansas City Star got it right.
That headline isn't hyperbole, either.
Even in the face of having elected not just Josh Hawley to be our next US Senator, representing the state, and Steve Watkins, too, this is, by far the worst thing for this state, coming out of this election.
Those two are horrible.
This is worse.
Missourians, you cheap so and sos.
Now we're going to get the roads the people who voted this down, deserve.
Links to just some of the facts.
Inaction from Jeff City
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