PennDOT Secretary Allen Biehler said today that transportation planners are "rejiggering" their priorities in the face of tight budgets to fix the state's more than 6,000 structurally deficient bridges while maintaining highways.

"We have not come face-to-face with the reality of the backlog of structurally deficient bridges," he said. "This is a real problem. If we don't solve it, it will choke us. We'll be closing bridges and weight-restricting bridges."

Biehler, speaking at a transportation meeting held this morning at Willow Valley Resort & Conference Center by Sen. Gibson E. Armstrong, described the problems facing Pennsylvania's road system as "frightening and real."

A November 2006 report issued by the state Transportation Funding and Reform Commission, of which Biehler is a member, recommended a spending increase of $1.7 billion each year over the next 10 years.

Act 44, the funding bill signed earlier this year by Gov. Ed Rendell, provides about half that, an average of more than $946 million annually over the next decade.

"We will use that money as best as we know how," Biehler said. "We'll probably have to rejigger our priorities. This is serious business-time. We need to be thoughtful. We need to be smart about it."

Some five dozen local government officials — from township roadmasters to supervisors — listened as Armstrong described the dire state of the transportation funding program.

"It's a monumental problem we're facing," he said.

While backlogs continue to build on major roads here, the cost of material from cement to asphalt to steel is rising at triple, sometimes quadruple, the rate of inflation — giving the state far less money to spend on future projects. Meantime, the winter freezes and thaws take their toll on roads and bridges.

"Every year it's worse than the year before," said Armstrong, who chairs the influential Appropriations Committee.

The cost of construction material, he said, has skyrocketed by 43 percent since 2003. So factoring that rate of inflation out 10 years, the state will need to spend far more than the $946 million a year allocated in Act 44 — but as much as $1.9 billion a year.

The state of Pennsylvania's bridges took on new importance after a tragic bridge collapse in Minneapolis earlier this year, in which 13 people died and about 100 were injured, according to published reports.

The nation's transportation agencies assign a sufficiency rating to each bridge on a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 being the worst. The rating takes into account a bridge's structural condition, importance and ability to meet current traffic demands. Across Pennsylvania, more than 6,000 of the 25,000 state-owned bridges are deficient.

Of Lancaster County's 733 bridges, 168 or 23 percent are rated structurally deficient, said Scott Christie, the acting district executive for District 8, which includes Lancaster County. Ideally, he said, PennDOT would like to reduce that number to just 10 percent.

PennDOT will spend $49 million between now and 2010 to repair and preserve 30 of those bridges, Christie said. It will also spend $77 million on highway maintenance, $20 million on improving safety at certain intersections, $16 million on highway enhancements, and $40 million on other precautions.

"Lancaster County isn't in that bad of a shape, compared to other counties," Christie said. "We've got some tough decisions."

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