The liberals lied to you about this too: The quality of US infrastructure has improved significantly over the last 20 years

[mota bhai 2,675]

Is the quality of infrastructure worsening?

Just the opposite. Believe it or not, infrastructure has improved significantly over the last two decades. In its report for 2010, the Federal Highway Administration said that 57 percent of all vehicle-miles were traveled on federal highways with ratings of "good" or higher -- according to a measure of road quality pleasingly known as the International Roughness Index. That was up from 48 percent in 2000. The percentage of roads in bad condition has also declined: In 1989 6.6 percent of rural and urban interstates were rated "poor"; now only 1.9 percent of rural interstates and 5.4 percent of urban ones earn that grade.

Despite warnings from President Barack Obama, America's bridges have never been safer. The highway administration rated 21.9 percent of its bridges "deficient" in 2009, as compared to 37.8 percent in 1989. And contrary to Obama's implication, the word "deficient" does not mean unsafe, at least as the highway administration uses it. A bridge is "deficient" when it would benefit from expansion and renovation in line with usage.

Traffic congestion has diminished. In 1989, 52.6 percent of urban interstates were rated "congested" according to a comparison of peak volume to planned capacity. In 2009, the figure was 26.3 percent.

Now, advocates for more infrastructure spending might believe that no road should have a pothole or ever be congested. But there’s a big pothole in that reasoning, called trade-offs. Timing aside, America seems to be spending about the right amount on infrastructure, just as it always has, just like most other developed nations.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-08/the-myth-of-the-falling-bridge.html