The report once again underscores the aging nature of much of the nation’s road infrastructure as Congress faces a Sept. 30 deadline to reauthorize the federal highway funding program. Lawmakers and interest groups have their eye on a building package tied to that program as one way to boost the economy once it begins to recover from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

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“Economic recovery from coronavirus begins with strategic road and bridge improvements,” ARTBA President Dave Bauer said. “Increased transportation investments support direct job creation and retention, while putting in place capital assets that will enhance U.S. productivity for decades to come.”

The structurally deficient bridges are found across the country and include the Brooklyn Bridge in New York and the longest bridge in California. But there are wide disparities from state to state in the proportion of bridges that are in bad condition.

Rhode Island ranks the worst in the study, which is based on data for 2019 released by the Federal Highway Administration. More than 22 percent of the state’s bridges are structurally deficient, according to ARTBA’s analysis.

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Charles St. Martin, a spokesman for the Rhode Island Department of Transportation, said that the state is ahead of schedule in a plan to improve the quality of its bridges by 2025 and that the most recent data it has submitted to federal authorities shows an improvement over the numbers analyzed by ARTBA.

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Overall, Maryland, Virginia and the District fare well in the rankings, with between 4 percent and 5 percent of bridges rated structurally deficient. Ratings have improved for Virginia in particular in the past half-decade, bringing its number of deficient bridges down from 998 in 2015 to 607 last year.

Emily Wade, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Transportation, said the state’s better numbers are the result of a sustained effort that has freed resources to focus on preserving bridges.

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“We will continue to address structurally-deficient bridges, but also focus on slowing the deterioration of the remainder of Virginia’s bridge inventory,” Wade said in an email.

While the connotations of the term “structurally deficient” might be scary, it does not mean a bridge poses an imminent danger to the public. It’s a term found in federal rules based on inspection scores and indicates one or more components of a bridge are in bad condition. The report says the deficient bridges continue to be used 178 million times each day.

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Nonetheless, ARTBA concluded that 81,000 bridges should be replaced and that conducting the recommended work would take more than 50 years at the current rate.

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Sometimes conditions do become unsafe, as happened in Seattle last month when officials suddenly closed a major highway bridge so they could repair cracks that left it unsound.

Alison Black, ARTBA’s chief economist, said states face different kinds of challenges in maintaining their bridges based on geography and climate. In Maryland, for example, several busy bridges constructed in 1963 that carry the Capital Beltway and Interstate 95 through Prince George’s County are in bad condition. But Black said that in many Midwestern states rural bridge networks pose the biggest problems.

The organization releases a similar report each year and has found only modest nationwide improvements in the past half-decade.

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“It underscores the importance of the need for investment,” Black said. “Things are getting better but at a very, very slow pace.”

Reaching an accord on boosting spending on infrastructure has eluded President Trump and congressional leaders, despite both sides’ stated desire to strike a deal.

The issue briefly received new attention when Trump tweeted last month that he would like to see a $2 trillion spending package to help with the recovery from the coronavirus. House Democrats quickly branded an existing $760 billion program they have been working on as fitting the bill, only for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to back away for the time being in the face of Republican resistance.

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Still, Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.), one of the architects of the Democrats’ proposal, pointed to the new bridge report as underscoring the need for action.

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“This analysis is sobering, but unfortunately, not all that surprising given the fact the Federal government has ignored the infrastructure needs of our country for decades,” DeFazio, chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said in a statement.

“We’re attempting to run a 21st century economy on a 1950s-era transportation system, which simply does not work and it shouldn’t take a bridge or economic collapse to get the Federal government to pay attention.”

In the Senate, the Environment and Public Works Committee agreed last year on a bipartisan measure to boost highway funding. But assembling a final piece of legislation needs action by several other committees, which hasn’t happened.

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Bauer said the Senate bill should be the basis for future discussions.

In the meantime, Black said some states have taken steps to raise more money on their own. Rhode Island, for example, has imposed a special toll on large trucks that it is dedicating to bridges.