On Apr 22, 2009, at 1:26 PM, Michael Pollak wrote:
> at least in re bridges. I'm not a fan of his, but he seems to have
> a couple of points, and if they're wrong, I'd love to have someone
> point them out:
>
> URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2216532
This is Slate's bread & butter, no? A conventional piece that purports to be against the grain. Most of his sources are the Bush administration, no? Not a word from the American Society of Civil Engineers - which, by the way, gives the highest grade (C) to bridges in its infrastructure report card:
<http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/>.
Still, from the bridge section:
> More than 26%, or one in four, of the nation’s bridges are either
> structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. While some progress
> has been made in recent years to reduce the number of deficient and
> obsolete bridges in rural areas, the number in urban areas is
> rising. A $17 billion annual investment is needed to substantially
> improve current bridge conditions. Currently, only $10.5 billion is
> spent annually on the construction and maintenance of bridges.