Former President Joe Biden used a decaying New Hampshire bridge to sell his massive infrastructure package in 2021, but the bridge is still in poor condition years later despite the bill unleashing billions of dollars in spending.
Biden stood in front of the rusty metal bridge carrying Route 175 over New Hampshire’s Pemigewasset River in November 2021 as he talked up the promise of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), a $1.2 trillion law meant to shore up America’s physical infrastructure. Even though the bill which Biden signed that same month has pumped billions of dollars across the country, the New Hampshire bridge remains in poor condition, according to NH Journal.
“The state has already spent a quarter of a million dollars on ‘Band-Aid’ repairs on this bridge alone,” Biden said in November 2021 as he stood in front of the bridge. “And right now, there are 215 bridges in your state — 215 bridges deemed structurally unsafe in New Hampshire alone … But thanks to the infrastructure law, we’re going to make the most significant investment to modernize our roads and our bridges in 70 years. The law is going to speed up replacement of bridges by the — at least — by at least a year and allow New Hampshire to invest in other critical infrastructure needs.”
“My message to the people of New Hampshire is simple,” said Biden. “It’s this: Because of this delegation, New Hampshire and America are moving again. Your life is going to change for the better, and that’s literal.”
Approximately 570 drivers use the bridge on a daily basis, but it can only safely support about three tons of weight, making it essentially off-limits to commercial trucks and even some passenger vehicles, according to NH Journal.
The 86-year-old structure has long been on New Hampshire’s “red list,” meaning that the state has identified it as a bridge that needs regular inspection because it is in poor condition, NH Journal reported. Moreover, state officials notified local counterparts in May 2022 that the bridge would need to be reduced to a single lane of traffic and further decrease its maximum weight limit.
The 175-foot New Hampshire bridge is one of many repair projects that have yet to materialize despite the availability of billions of dollars from Biden’s infrastructure bill, which was one of the defining legislative feats of his one-term presidency, according to NH Journal.
“We’re just not repairing (bridges) at the state we should. It’s not being done at the expedience that it should, and funding is not the problem,” Kevan Stone, executive director of the National Association of County Engineers, told NH Journal. “There are a million different reasons why it’s not being done, but it’s not being done, and it’s going to lead to tragedy, as history has shown us.”
Other IIJA programs — such as a $7.5 billion electric vehicle (EV) charger initiative and a $42 billion broadband buildout plan — also failed to deliver advertised results despite making huge sums of government cash available.
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