Aow #4: Crumbling Under Our Wheels

America had one of the greatest infrastructure systems in the world, but they weren't looking into future problems.  Such as President Dwight Eisenhower when he signed the Federal aid Highway Act. He signed this act so he would get re-elected not because of America’s safety. With all the bridges collapsing injuring and killing several hundred American’s. This cost them over 234 million dollars in repairs. America has over 607,380 bridges and most of them pass with a D+ which means most of them need repaired or replaced, but when they built these bridges they didn't think what they would look like in 50 to 100 years from now. Now that America is growing we have so much more traffic and pedestrians than we had in the 1950’s so the structures have to be stronger and last longer. America is now wanting to raise gas to 18.4 cents a gallon and using the tax to pay the government for bridge and road construction. If they raise gas more then what it is since it’s already 4 dollars a gallon, then no one is going to be able to afford to drive since we can barely afford gas now. They also mentioned that 1 in 9 bridges are structurally deficient with these kinds of safety conditions American’s should fear to drive on these bridges. If they get the funds, they need to build bridges out of aircraft aluminum so they don’t rust and would rarely need repaired. America is already spending about 91 billion dollars annually on the highways, and they say it needs to be doubled for all the repairs for damages on bridges and roads. Since the government has been supporting over 316 million people driving on these roads and bridges, and the government already has to share these funds with other companies and departments like the water treatment and electrical grids is going to be nearly impossible to fix everything at once.

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