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NEW YORK, Feb. 16 (Xinhua) -- Nearly 56,000 American bridges are structurally deficient, says a U.S. bridge construction group.
The American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) said a report issued Wednesday that cars, trucks and school buses cross the nation's 55,710 structurally compromised bridges 185 million times daily.
The report is based on the analysis of the 2016 National Bridge Inventory data released recently by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
More than one in four bridges (173,919) are at least 50 years old and have never had major reconstruction work, according to the ARTBA analysis. State transportation officials have identified 13,000 bridges along interstates that need replacement, widening or major reconstruction, according to the group.
"America's highway network is woefully under performing. It is outdated, overused, underfunded and in desperate need of modernization," said ARTBA Chief Economist Dr. Alison Premo Black, who conducted the analysis.
"State and local transportation departments haven't been provided the resources to keep pace with the nation's bridge needs." Black said.
The five states with the most deficient bridges are Iowa with 4,968, Pennsylvania with 4,506, Oklahoma with 3,460, Missouri with 3,195 and Nebraska with 2,361.
