Where has all the money for bridges gone?

A Heritage Foundation analysis finds that the federal government has given more money to state for bridge repair than states are actually using, with a special mention of Pennsylvania:

Using data from a recent report by the Congressional Research Service, Heritage’s Ron Utt calculates that between FY 2002 and FY 2007, the gap between what the federal government made available to the states for bridge repair and the amount of that money the states actually spent on bridge repair is $9.29 billion. That represents about a third of the total federal funding for bridge repair over that time period.   What happened? Much of the gap, says Utt, remains a mystery, but at least $2.1 billion was diverted by the states to other transportation priorities, such as building new bridges and funding transit projects. Pennsylvania, notes Utt, was one of the leading states at diverting money from bridge repair to other purposes. Pennsylvania also leads the nation in percentage of bridges deemed structurally deficient: 25 percent.

So it may be time for Governor Rendell to stop whining about needing more money from the federal government/taxpayers.