List of deficient bridges released
State releases list of deficient bridges
Responding to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst’s request for a complete inventory of “structurally deficient” bridges, the Texas Department of Transportation on Thursday released a list of 2,024 such Texas bridges, including 36 in the three-county Austin area.
The agency at the same time released a broadside, sending Dewhurst a five-page letter that included several paragraphs outlining how the Legislature has failed to provide it the necessary funds to take on bridge maintenance and other state transportation challenges.
“In each of the recent legislative sessions, TxDOT and its regional partners have been asked to do more with less,” the letter from Texas Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson says.
It goes on to outline how the Legislature took more transportation money for other needs and limited the agency’s ability to tap the private sector for roads. “(T)he net result of legislative action was to scale back resources,” Williamson said in the letter.
Click here to see the list.
TxDOT has a point and every reason to be telling the Lt. Gov. Dewhurst and the legislature that they have been asked to do more for less every year. You can’t bleed a rock and when you cut funding you have to expect that things will fall through the cracks (no pun intended.) Our infrastructure is suffering horribly all over the country. Texas is not an anomaly.
Technorati Tags: bridges, infrastructure, Lt. Gov. Dewhurst, TxDOT
Filed under: David Dewhurst, infrastructure planning, texas
