Minnesota disaster highlights poor state of US bridges

[EV_Ares]

From The Guardian Unlimited



About 77,000 bridges across America share the same "structurally deficient" rating as the one that collapsed over the Mississippi, it emerged today.
Transport specialists said billions of dollars would be needed to replace the bridges, many of which were built 40 - 50 years ago and were coming to the end of their shelf life.

The Minnesota governor, Tim Pawlenty, said: "I think anybody who looks at the national picture, the national statistics, and says that we don't have a problem would be naive or misleading the situation. We have a major problem."

The Democrats had proposed spending $631m (£315.5m) more on federal highway safety than Mr Bush budgeted for but he had threatened to veto it.

William Wilkins, who works for Trip, a transport thinktank, estimated $65bn would be needed to replace the ageing bridges.
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NOTE FR POSTER: Watch Bush will give Halliburton a contract to build bridges in the US. They can't even build a police station in Iraq>
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2141302,00.html
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