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Show iFACU&FIGURESl m 7 , 11 5t7aOll?Jt76Ort7oltrt?ol2tf4701l45 Of our nation's two million miles of paved roads, nearly two thirds need repair. Ac- I cording to recent studies, an estimated 210,000 miles of the nation's paved roads 10.5 percent are in "poor" or "very poor" condition. They require a complete restructuring, restruc-turing, the cost of which on a national average is $640,000 per mile. An additional 1.03 million miles 518 percent-are percent-are rated only "fair." Studies show environmental environment-al damage amounts to less than ten percent of the total life cycle cost of roadways. The other 90 percent of the deterioration is cau.sed by service ser-vice diggings to install or repair re-pair electric lines, gas pipes, water mains and telephone cables, and by traffic. Our bridges are in bad shape as well. Seventy-five percent of them are 50 or more years old Of the 571,246 bridges inventoried by the Federal Highway Administration, Ad-ministration, 136,34723 9 percent are classified as "structurally deficient," an increase of 4,200 over last year, whiU1 T:ore thnn 21 percent per-cent have hern declared obsolete. obso-lete. Neglect and lack of funds are destroying America's surface sur-face transportation system. A ten-year program to meet current cur-rent road and bridge needs would cost $31.9 billion annually, annu-ally, according to the American Amer-ican Society of CV'il Engineers En-gineers (ASCEl. Bad roads and bridges are raising other costs for the public: potholes and rutted pavements damage dam-age oil pans, mufflers, axles, wheels, t:re und other vehicle vehi-cle parts, while closed bridges and traffic jams cost even more in terms of business lost and wasted gasoline. Some possible solutions: Increased support and funding fund-ing for public transportation. Increased help and advice from America's civil engineers, en-gineers, the people who moke it possible to design and operate oper-ate mass transit systems, roads and bridges economically economi-cally and efficiently. Free Booklet For a free booklet about civil engineering and transportation, trans-portation, write: American Society of Civil Engineers, Dept. P, 345 East 47th St.. New York, NY 10017. |