There are over 47,000 structurally deficient bridges in the United States, according to an analysis from the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) from earlier this year. That means that the structures that see 178 million vehicle crossings every day are considered to be in poor condition. 

Even some iconic American bridges made the list of the decrepit, including the Brooklyn Bridge in New York; the Memorial Bridge in Washington, D.C. that stretches over the Potomac River behind the Lincoln Memorial; and the San Mateo-Hayward bridge, the longest bridge in California.

The number of structurally deficient bridges is actually down compared to 2017, according to ARTBA, but the pace of improvement has slowed in the last five years. There were also some 6,500 bridges left off the list because of changes in criteria since the last report. Around 88% of the bridges classified as structurally deficient in 2018 had the same rating in 2017.

“At this rate,” the report said, “it would take over 80 years to make the significant repairs needed on these structures. This pace of the work is at the slowest point in five years.” 

It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. In 2017, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) issued its quadrennial report, and gave U.S. infrastructure an overall grade of D+. The ASCE 2017 Report Card’s national grade for infrastructure remained the same as in 2013, suggesting only incremental progress was made in four years toward improving the country’s infrastructure. The nation’s bridges actually did better than infrastructure as a whole with a C+ grade, which was also unchanged since 2013.

Besides the deficient bridges in the ARTBA report, there are also 235,000 bridges across the country that need structural repair, rehabilitation, or replacement, totaling 38% of all bridges. ARTBA estimates the cost to make those repairs at $171 billion.

The states with the highest percentage of structurally deficient bridges, according to the ARTBA report, are Rhode Island, at 23%; West Virginia, with 19.8%; Iowa, 19.3%; South Dakota, 16.7%; and Pennsylvania, 16.5%. Pennsylvania was second on the list of states with the largest number of structurally deficient bridges, with 3,770—Iowa led with 4,675 bridges—but also led the list of states which have reduced the number of its structurally deficient bridges over the last five years. Oklahoma, Indiana, California, and Ohio all significantly reduced the number of deficient bridges over the last five years, while in 14 states, including West Virginia, Illinois, Florida, Montana, and Louisiana, the number of structurally deficient bridges actually increased.

Administration and Congressional efforts to increase infrastructure investments have not borne fruit. The ASCE says spending from all levels of government and the private sector to meet infrastructure requirements needs to increase from 2.5% to 3.5% of GDP in the next six years.