Like a Bridge Over Troubled Funding

Who needs Six Flags or Hershey Park when PennDOT is offering you the thrill of a lifetime on 130 area bridges?

The department of transportation is limiting heavy vehicles on 1,000 state bridges and 130 in the Philadelphia five-county region.

This has everything to do with the legislature failing to pass Gov. Corbett's transportation funding, one of the three prime initiatives of his administration.

As noted by The Inquirer's Paul Nussbaum, "Faced with Gov. Corbett's proposal for $1.8 billion in additional funding, a $2.5 billion increase approved by the state Senate, or a $2 billion plan offered by House Republican leaders, state lawmakers picked none of the above."

"We're trying to buy time till funding is in place," said PennDOT's Southeastern executive Lester Toaso. The Baltimore Avenue Bridge over Darby Creek in Clifton Heights has a new sign setting a 36-ton limit, down from 40 tons.

A fully loaded tractor-trailer weighs 40 tons.

So all it takes is one of those bad boys ignoring the sign to put the fear in motorists and wondering if they have just traveled a bridge too far. Here's the state map of troubled bridges.

This is sort of one of those your-state-funding-or-your-life scenarios.

--Karen Heller