A swift response

I was horrified when I received news of the I-35W Bridge catastrophe in Minneapolis on August 1st. The most traveled bridge in the state had simply collapsed into the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, taking thirteen lives and plunging dozens of cars into the river. As my good friend and colleague Senator Amy Klobuchar said, "A bridge in America just shouldn’t fall down."

As the American taxpayers expect, my response in Congress was swift. I secured $250 million from the Federal Government to aid in the reconstruction of the bridge. And just one week after the bridge collapsed, I developed a National Highway System Bridge Initiative to address the problem of deteriorating bridge structures – there are 70,000 bridges in this country that have been given the designation "structurally deficient." America should have the best transportation infrastructure system in the world and that’s 70,000 reasons our country has fallen far behind in reaching this goal.

My initiative would move our country more quickly towards this goal. It has four components:

Raise the standards for bridge inspections, increase training, and provide new technologies for bridge inspectors;

Create a trust fund to finance the repair, rehabilitation, or replacement of deteriorating bridges;

Distribute funding on the basis of safety and need -- with no earmarks allowed; and

Create a dedicated revenue stream to keep that trust fund solvent.

Having served on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for over 37 years, transportation funding has always been a priority for me. After the bridge collapse, it is clear that it now must be a priority for our country.

Please use the resources included on this page for more information on my initiative. I look forward to being a part of this important discussion.

Jim Oberstar

Media


Click to watch Jim's opening speech during the Transportation Committee's hearing on the bridge trust fund initiative. (You can read the text of his speech here.)
Click to watch Jim's press conference from Minneapolis on August 8th detailing his initiative.


News

The Truth About My Position on Bridges and Infrastructure
by Jim Oberstar
The things I support are in the public interest, and I've been at it a long time. If you believe Katherine Kersten, I am single-handedly responsible for the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge. She paints a picture of me as a modern Slovenian-American Nero, cheerfully pedaling...  » Read more

Editorial: Oberstar's Bridge Plan Would Be Fast and Fair
Rep. Jim Oberstar has offered a compelling plan to quickly and responsibly reconstruct the worst of the nation's 154,000 deficient and dangerous bridges. The Minneapolis calamity of three weeks ago should generate action, he said last week, not the collective shrug that followed the Silver Bridge's collapse into the Ohio River 40 years ago, when 46 people died...  » Read more

Oberstar Proposes Trust Fund for Aging Bridges
Minneapolis, Minn. — Oberstar has already shown what a powerful committee chairman can accomplish. Within days of the 35W collapse, Oberstar had pushed through emergency legislation that pledges $250 million for a replacement bridge and another $5 million for transit assistance. President Bush...  » Read more


Resources

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