As of this year, there were more than 220,000 bridges needing repair in the U.S. according to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) using the U.S. Department of Transportation’s bridge inventory database, and 45,000 of them are classified as “structurally deficient.” ARTBA determined that 40% of bridges needed to be replaced entirely or repaired, including a third of all the bridges on interstate highways. That’s a lot of work, and a lot of money—an estimated $41.8 billion. At the current rate of construction, it would take 40 years to fix them all, ARTBA estimated. The American Society of Civil Engineers is even more pessimistic on the state of our infrastructure, estimating it would take 50 years to fix them all and $125 billion to fix. The good news as of this week is that it’s not going to take 40 or 50 years to fix them all, because the current rate of funding and construction is going to get a big boost, and  President Joe Biden gets to deliver those good tidings because President Joe Biden got a new infusion of $550 billion in hard infrastructure spending in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Read more