A new US national effort to push for passage of the long-delayed bill that provides federal funds to fix aging roads and unsafe bridges launched on Tuesday with the unveiling of new billboard, radio and print advertisements in Rapid City, South Dakota. The effort, which will cover dozens of states during the coming weeks, is designed to educate the public about why passing a federal transportation bill is essential to improving road conditions in states like South Dakota.
"The reality is our communities can't thrive and our businesses can't grow if they are saddled with potholes and unsafe bridges," said Brian Turmail, a spokesman for the two national groups sponsoring the effort, the Americans for Transportation Mobility and the Transportation Construction Coalition. "The best route to a better transportation system for our country lies in getting Congress to do its job and pass the months-late highway and transit bill."
Turmail said that nearly half of all bridges nationwide are structurally unsound or functionally obsolete. Meanwhile poor road conditions contribute to roughly half of the nation's highway fatalities.
The last surface transportation bill expired on Sept. 30, 2009, and since then Congress has passed a series of short-term measures to ensure states continue to receive federal transportation funds. Turmail noted that those short-term "patches" fail to address shortfalls in federal highway funding.