By Mike Tony, Charleston Gazette-Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia has a bridge problem.
The Mountain State has the highest percentage of structurally deficient bridges in the country. Now it’s getting one of the highest shares of federal funding nationwide to fix a landscape of bridges in dire need of repair.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has announced that West Virginia will receive more than $500 million to upgrade its bridges, part of a $26.5 billion investment in states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico over five years enabled by the bipartisan infrastructure law passed by Congress in November.
The Biden administration announced Friday that West Virginia would receive $506.7 million over the next five years to fix its bridges, starting with $101.3 million for fiscal year 2022.
That money is poised to come in handy in West Virginia, whose 21.2% clip of structurally deficient bridges was highest nationwide according to an American Road & Transportation Builders Association analysis of federal data…
