We’ve mentioned in previous posts that Pennsylvania does a very good job, relative to other states, of reporting on its stimulus spending. It doesn’t simply tell citizens how many jobs were created, but what the money is accomplishing.

But even in Pennsylvania, communicating the impact of stimulus dollars on vast transportation needs is still very tricky.

For its highway and bridge program, Pennsylvania is getting a little over $1 billion in Recovery Act funding. By the end of July, about half that money was spent. That contributed to a 2.51% reduction  in the “percentage miles of roads with an International Roughness rating of “Poor” or “Fair” and a .69% reduction in the “Percentage of square feet of structurally deficient bridge deck area.”

 What do you think about those numbers, at first glance? It's our guess that you -- and Pennsylvania's citizens -- aren't driven to cheer.

But wait a minute. Before you put away the party hats, it's important to see other data, that's not captured on the Recovery Act website. It shows that the state is actually making a considerable dent in its sizable bridge problem.  As with the Recovery Act generally, progress can’t all be tied to stimulus spending, but that cash unquestionably provided a significant boost to Pennsylvania’s accelerated bridge program which was put in place in 2008.

At the time, nearly a quarter – or 6,034 – of the state’s 25,000 bridges were labeled structurally deficient. The list is now down to  5,600 – or about 22 percent of the total. That's still worse than the national average, which was 10 percent in 2008 and is 8 percent now. But it is progress. Meanwhile, the total number of bridges that have been rebuilt grew from a planned 1,145 to a new goal of 1,500 by year’s end. “The Recovery Act helped us substantially,” says Brian Thompson, director for the Bureau of Design in Pennsylvania’s Department of Transportation. (Photo top left)

As a large Northeastern state, Pennsylvania’s problems are magnified. It has the most bridges in the country that are over 75 years old. (The average age is 51 compared to 35 nationally.) It also has the third most state-owned bridges in the U.S. (Texas is first and North Carolina second.) As in many other states, managers must feel as if they’re on a kind of treadmill. As they work to remove bridges from the structurally deficient list, about 300 more come on the list each year. Part of the Department of Transportation’s goal is to get that number down by half.

Since Pennsylvania, like other states, must work diligently on the preservation of bridges that aren’t yet troubled, its ability to make a dent in the structurally deficient list is reduced. The preservation work is more difficult to demonstrate but very important. “If we allow our bridges to deteriorate, eventually they will become load restricted or closed to the travelling public,” says Thompson. “In addition, the preservation work to keep good bridges good, prevents them from becoming structurally deficient.”

Another measure not shown on the Recovery Act is the number of bridges with weight restrictions. Here, too Pennsylvania is improving -- a plus for economic growth. In 1998, 1045 bridges were weight restricted. By 2010, the number was down to 734. Likewise, 59 bridges were closed in 1998. In 2010, that number is down to 43.