Business

Bridge disaster to increase gas taxes
by Ioana Madalina Tantareanu

The crumbling infrastructure of the United States, and the billions of dollars needed for repairs have once again been brought to attention by the Minneapolis bridge disaster. According to former chairman of the House Transportation Comitee, Don Young, there are 500 more bridges around the country who could become potential deathtraps. One quarter of the nation's bridges have been classified structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, while one third of the major roads have been judged as being of poor or mediocre condition. The human tragedy of the Minnesota bridge collapse once again reminded that road conditions represent one third of the 40,000 traffic fatalities every year, and that the total sum needed for repairs has now reached $461 billion. Also traffic congestions cost drivers $63 billion in wasted time and fuel costs. "It's a tragic wakeup call," said Matt Jeanneret, spokesman for the American Road and Transportation Builders Association. "This is gut check time for members of Congress for what they are going to do at the federal level." Within a day of the Minneapolis bridge disaster, the Senate moved to create a national commission to look into what must be done to improve roads, bridges, drinking water systems and other public works. Advocates said it basically boils down to two issues â€" finding the money and the political will. According to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce study last year, indexing fuel taxes retroactively to 1993 would have boosted the tax to about 25 cents a gallon last year, raising an average of $20 billion annually.

by Ioana Madalina Tantareanu for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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posted by Blog TechSource @ 12:55 PM