



All the need might dovetail nicely with the White House vow to invest $1 trillion in infrastructure, some portion of which would go to roads and bridges. Though that promised investment, so far, relies on a campaign white paper that says the money could be leveraged by offering an 82 percent tax credit to private investors, people on Capitol Hill hope to round out President Donald Trump's funding strategy.



"This is the first president that I can recall who talked in his inaugural address about infrastructure," said House Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa., who counts more than three dozen deficient bridges in his southwestern Pennsylvania district. "We at the national level have to figure out how we're going to make these investments, and figure out how we get it done, and now we have a president who's pounding on the table saying we've got to do it."



The average bridge in Shuster's state is 51 years old and nearing the end of it's functional life. Though there is no shortage of rivers that need crossing in the eastern half of Pennsylvania, rivers are a dominant characteristic in the west. Pittsburgh alone counts 446 bridges.



None of the spans across those three rivers in Pittsburgh is a toll bridge.



Even with a tax credit, private investors want a return on their revenue, and for bridges that generally means imposing a toll.