The Mississippi Legislature recently voted to raise $200 million in bond financing to pay for transportation investments, most of which would target the state’s list of structurally deficient bridges. The House gave final approval March 30 to a House-Senate conference report on the legislation, following Senate adoption a day earlier. Gov. Phil Bryant signed the bill into law on April 6, for an effective date of July 1.
The tenets of the measure will send $20 million in bond-generated revenue into the State Aid Road Fund that helps counties maintain secondary roads; a further $18 million will go to the Department of Transportation to build a roadway bridge in Vicksburg. The remaining $162 million will be used at the “discretion of the Mississippi Transportation Commission, to pay the costs of repair, rehabilitation, replacement, construction and/or reconstruction of the bridges on state-maintained highways that are on a list of deficient bridges compiled by the Mississippi Department of Transportation as of July 1, 2015.”
The bonds will reportedly be substantiated by casino tax receipts, which have been flowing to roads in counties with casinos along the Gulf Coast and Mississippi River—legislation of which came prior to the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) releasing a report showing that while states and local governments have made some progress in bridge conditions, the nation still has a backlog of 61,000 structurally deficient bridges. The ARTBA report included a state-by-state breakdown as well.
Miss. DOT executive director Melinda McGrath cited the ARTBA analysis for showing the agency that “the time for action is now, not years down the deteriorated road. The need for federal funding to repair roads and bridges has never been greater. Continued delays in federal funding will eventually create safety hazards for the traveling public and devastate economic growth.”
At present, Mississippi has more than 2,200 structurally deficient bridges.
