Infrastructure and unemployment: this just isn't that complicated.
>by David Atkins
This is what a country in disrepair looks like:
The Washington State Patrol chief says the Interstate 5 bridge collapse into the Skagit (SKA'-jiht) River at Mount Vernon was caused by an oversize truck...
The bridge was not classified as structurally deficient, but a Federal Highway Administration database listed it as being "functionally obsolete" - a category meaning that the design is outdated, such as having narrow shoulders and low clearance underneath.
The bridge was built in 1955 and has a sufficiency rating of 57.4 out of 100, according to federal records. That is well below the statewide average rating of 80, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal data, but 759 bridges in the state have a lower sufficiency score.
According to a 2012 Skagit County Public Works Department report, 42 of the county's 108 bridges are 50 years or older. The document says eight of the bridges are more than 70 years old and two are over 80.
Washington state was given a C in the American Society of Civil Engineers' 2013 infrastructure report card and a C- when it came to the state's bridges. The group said more than a quarter of Washington's 7,840 bridges are considered structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.
Shoring up all these bridges would be a major investment of mostly blue collar manpower. And as it turns out, the country has a desperate need for jobs, especially ones that don't require a college degree.
It would take a perverse, malevolent government not to take the opportunity to fit those two puzzle pieces together. Wouldn't it?
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