Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell says the nation’s bridges are in crisis, and should get the same attention as the mortgage foreclosure crisis. He and others released a report on Monday on the state of thousands of bridges throughout the United States.

Governor Rendell and highway and transportation officials want the federal government to make bridge repair a priority. Rendell says the government needs a capital budget:

“We have a legitimate crisis with these bridges. You could pay $140 billion for 20 years, and that’s how capital budgets spread out the cost. Does $140 billion ring a bell with you? Well, it should — because that’s what we’re spending in Iraq each and every year.”  read more »

Gov. Rendell is expected today to call for repairs on hundreds of aging bridges statewide – including many in the Philadelphia area.

Rendell will also list more than 1,100 bridges that are structurally deficient at an 11 a.m. press conference in Harrisburg.

The bridge repair program would require legislative approval. Last year, the legislature approved a transportation funding bill to provide about $530 million for Pennsylvania bridges and roads.

The state Department of Transportation last year found 6,000 structurally deficient bridges statewide. Of those, 60 heavily traveled bridges were in the Philadelphia region and rated as bad as, or worse than, the condition of the Minnesota bridge that collapsed last August.  read more »