America's Broken Bridges

Every day about 140,000 cars and trucks cross the massive, seven-lane Tappan Zee Bridge connecting the northern suburban counties of New York City. Most drivers have no idea the 57-year-old bridge was designed in such a way that if just one of its structural elements gives way, the whole bridge could fall and send them tumbling into the Hudson River. The same is true for the Pulaski Skyway between Newark and Jersey City, and the San Diego-Coronado Bridge in California, not to mention the Fremont Bridge in Portland, Ore., the Lafayette Bridge in St. Paul, Minn., and thousands of others across the country.

Five years after the Minneapolis I-35W span suddenly collapsed in August 2007, killing 13 people and injuring 145 others, the U.S. still has 18,000 similarly designed spans, known as fracture-critical bridges, that need continual attention and money for inspections at a time when funding for maintenance is drying up. On March 31, the current extension to the federal highway bill, which funds work on bridges, will expire. Congress has been working on new legislation since the fall, getting nowhere. The Senate passed a two-year, $109 billion highway spending package on March 14 that would raise money for transportation projects by changing how pension fund contributions and liabilities are calculated. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is pushing a five-year bill that calls for using royalties from U.S. oil and gas drilling—a proposal he hasn’t been able to sell to his own party.