The Condition of U.S. Bridges Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

The Condition of U.S. Bridges - Research Paper Example As a result of years of declining budgets with respect to bridge repair, it is estimated that only one in the ninth bridges are currently considered as â€Å"structurally deficient†. The underlying reason for the lack of funding that bridge repair has been able to affect over the past several years can be linked to various factors. One of the first factors that should be considered is with respect to declining overall revenue that gas taxes have been able to drive. As the cost of a gallon of gasoline has risen precipitously over the past 20 years the response by both federal and state government was to decrease the overall tax burden that was leveraged against this particular commodity. Naturally, the underlying goal for such an approach was to make the resource more affordable to the population; thereby increasing mobility and decreasing the overall rates of joblessness that the economy would otherwise experience. However, a downside to this approach was the fact that federal and state revenue that was earned on each and every gallon of fuel sold was not able to meet the same levels as it had during the 1980s and 1990s. As the reader can reasonably expect, the inability of revenue to keep up with the increased requirements of infrastructure repair created a situation in which a veritable avalanche of projects competed for repair by increasingly reduced levels of funding. Research into the current state of the nation’s bridges estimates that by 2025, fully  ¼ bridges will be over 65 years old.