PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Pennsylvania's infrastructure received a passing grade, but barely. Some officials say they're working to get that grade higher, but they're being held back by funding.
Pennsylvania received a C- as an overall grade on a 2021 report card for America's infrastructure, from the American Society of Civil Engineers.
"Certainly not something you'd be proud to take home to your parents, but very consistent with the national grade, which is also a C- for the country," said the ASCE's Tom Smith.
Smith said schools, roads and railways are just a few of the different kinds of infrastructure they evaluated when they put the report card together.
"We really analyzed the capacity of the infrastructure, the condition that it's in, the funding and the future need. We look at operation and maintenance issues and public safety," he said.
"We looked at aviation, bridges, dams, drinking water, hazardous waste, inland waterways, parks and recreation," he said.
PennDOT's Brad Rudolph said they currently have a number of projects in place to help strengthen different infrastructure across the state, with many of them focusing on bridges.
"We've reduced the backlog of poor condition bridges across the state and particularly across the region," he reported. "We have a lot of bridge projects, a lot of local bridges, all the way to the big viaducts you see downtown."
Rudolph said they need funding for infrastructure improvement projects, which is why they're looking at adding tolls to some bridges, like the Girard Point bridge, as well as new long-term funding sources. He said most of the money comes from the gas tax, which he said doesn't generate as much money as it once did.