PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is getting $1.6 billion over five years in federal funding for infrastructure through a new federal bipartisan infrastructure law. But, is that enough?
The department has been working to improve bridges and roads and will continue to do so using the new funds.
“In 2008, there were over 6,000 state-owned bridges that were in poor condition in the state of Pennsylvania,” said acting PennDOT Executive Deputy Secretary Melissa Batula. “We’ve made tremendous progress in reducing that number. Today, that number is just over 2,400 bridges for the state-owned system.”
Batula said the state has some of the country’s oldest infrastructure in place.
“Pennsylvania is home to over 25,400 state-owned bridges, so that means that PennDOT is responsible for the maintenance of these bridges as well as their safety inspections,” she noted.
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However, could more have been done? In 2019, Auditor General Eugene DePasquale found billions of dollars from tax revenue meant to go toward infrastructure instead were used to pay state police.
“The police have an important function that they do on the roadways,” said Batula, “whether it’s enforcing the weight restrictions that we put on the bridges, keeping our speeders down and, of course, DUIs.
“They play an important role, but those dollars can’t be spent twice.”
When pressed on the issue, PennDOT spokesperson Alexis Campbell said in a written statement that none of Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposed ways to address state police funding have been supported by the Republican-led Legislature.
She pointed to an over-reliance on unreliable state and federal gas taxes. She added PennDOT continues to address these challenges.
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