We Party Patriots shows what a structurally deficient bridge can look like:
A vice president of the Ironworkers Union had this and other pictures taken of a bridge on Route 128 in Gloucester, Massachusetts. This bridge just carries a measly 57,164 vehicles per day; the two busiest structurally deficient bridges in Massachusetts (PDF) carry more than 150,000 vehicles each day. Prospects aren't good for all these bridges getting repaired. In 2006, American bridges were in need of $48 billion in repairs, but the federal budget to repair them was just $4.6 billion. By 2009, the budget had grown to $5.2 billion, but the needed repairs had grown to $70.9 billion.
Regardless of the amount of wear and tear on a specific bridge, most bridges are designed to last roughly 50 years. The average age of bridges in the U.S. is 42 years old. The number of structurally deficient bridges is virtually guaranteed to increase over time, as a wave of old bridges reach the end of their designed lives.
Right now, many politicians who preach American greatness would say we're not great enough to have adequate infrastructure—anyway, that's the message Congress sends every time it votes against investing in bridges and roads and railroads and water and sewer systems. Fixing these bridges would keep us safe. It would create jobs. The people who had those jobs would spend money in businesses in their communities. They would pay taxes. Their kids would graduate from college with less debt. Saying we can't afford something as basic and beneficial as this is one more (needless) demonstration of how broken our political system is.