U.S. bridges, about 70,000 of them, are classified as "structurally deficient," according to Transportation For America’s study. This number accounts for 11.5% of total highway bridges in the U.S. needing “significant maintenance, rehabilitation or replacement. This means that an average of 282,672,680 people a day are driving over these deficient bridges.

Although the federal, state, and local governments have funds directly for the maintenance of bridges, “existing federal programs don't ensure that aging bridges actually get fixed; and the current level of investment is nowhere near what is needed to keep up with our rapidly growing backlog of aging bridges,” the study says.

With further cuts in federal spending and tightening budgets at every government level, this pressing problem being put aside. The top four states with the highest percentage of deficient bridges are: Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Iowa, and Rhode Island ranging from 26.5% to 21.6% deficient bridges.

Although this doesn’t bode well for government spending, maintenance on these bridges would require large amounts of steel and construction work.