Some ugly numbers on deficient bridges

The Reason Foundation has posted up some data on the number of deficient bridges across the nation. The feds track this stuff for obvious reasons (mobility across states, an understanding as to how states are doing and what they are doing with fed money, and also because bridges that are rated ‘deficient’ become eligible for federal funding for repair.
Overall, Reason notes that

The condition of the nation’s highway bridges continued to improve from 2004 to 2005. Of the 596,980 highway bridges in the current National Bridge Inventory, 147,913—about 24.52 percent—were reported deficient for 2005 (see table), a slight improvement from 2004. In 1998 about 29.0 percent were rated deficient. However, progress is slow; at the current rate of improvement, it would take 50 years for the percentage of deficient bridges to be eliminated.

So how do individual states do? New England as a whole does poorly, and Massachusetts is no exception, coming in at 45th out of 50 states. A whopping 36+ percent of Mass. bridges are rated deficient according to Reason. Even discounting states with relatively new infrastructure, like Arizona and Nevada, there are old infrastructure states like Illinois (17+ percent) and Virginia (22+ percent) that perform so much better than we do. The Reason table follows:

Deficient Bridges
Rank	State	% Deficient
1	Nevada	3.89
2	Arizona	5.5
3	Wyoming	12.37
4	Colorado	12.96
5	Minnesota	13.16
6	Wisconsin	15.93
7	Delaware	16.55
8	Utah	17.55
9	Illinois	17.56
10	California	17.59
11	Florida	18.33
12	New Mexico	18.43
13	Idaho	18.91
14	Tennessee	19.26
15	Georgia	20.35
16	Texas	20.56
17	Kansas	21.05
18	Montana	21.2
19	Indiana	21.83
20	Arkansas	22.24
21	Virginia	22.46
22	Alaska	22.84
23	Ohio	23.61
24	South Carolina	23.63
25	North Dakota	24.24
26	Nebraska	24.55
27	Washington	24.55
28	Alabama	24.94
29	Oregon	25.34
30	South Dakota	25.62
31	Mississippi	26.42
32	Maryland	26.93
33	Iowa	27.06
34	Michigan	27.9
35	New Jersey	27.91
36	Maine	29.87
37	New Hampshire	30.54
38	Louisiana	30.67
39	North Carolina	30.91
40	Kentucky	31.45
41	Missouri	31.47
42	Oklahoma	33.04
43	Connecticut	34.18
44	Vermont	34.8
45	Massachusetts	36.38
46	Hawaiii	36.85
47	New York	37.08
48	West Virginia	37.1
49	Pennsylvania	39
50	Rhode Island	53.01
	Mean	24.52