Robert Poole Jr.: Buying our way out of traffic  Raising gas
taxes isn't the way to fund more and better highways  By ROBERT
W. POOLE JR. / Director of Transportation Studies at Reason
Foundation  The fatal Minneapolis bridge collapse is being cited
as "exhibit A" in the country's infrastructure crisis. But
anyone who drives on our congested, potholed highways knows that
the government for decades has been failing to properly maintain
and expand the very arteries needed keep our cities moving.
According to the Reason Foundation's 16th Annual Highway
Performance Report, most states should be concerned about the
condition of their bridges. The study reported that of 596,980
highway bridges in the current National Bridge Inventory,
147,913 of them - 24.52 percent - were deficient or obsolete in
2005. Minnesota actually ranked fifth in the nation, with "only"
13 percent of its bridges labeled deficient, which means 45
other states have a higher percentage of troubled bridges than
the state currently dealing with