Highway Bridge Program (HBP)

What It Means

The Highway Bridge Program (HBP) was the primary federal funding source for bridge rehabilitation and replacement on public roads from 1978 through 2012. It originated as the Highway Bridge Replacement and Rehabilitation Program (HBRRP) under the 1978 Surface Transportation Assistance Act, created in direct response to the 1967 Silver Bridge collapse and the growing recognition of a national bridge deficiency backlog. HBRRP was renamed and modified through successive transportation authorization bills (STAA 1982, ISTEA 1991, TEA-21 1998, SAFETEA-LU 2005), with funding levels rising from roughly $1.5 billion annually in the early 1980s to over $5 billion per year in the late 2000s. Funds were distributed to states by formula based on the relative cost to repair and replace deficient bridges, using the Sufficiency Rating as the primary eligibility and prioritization metric. MAP-21 in 2012 formally ended the HBP as a standalone program and consolidated its funding into the broader National Highway Performance Program and Surface Transportation Block Grant Program, while adding performance measures requiring states to track the percentage of National Highway System bridge deck area in Good and Poor condition. The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) then added two dedicated new bridge programs totaling approximately $40 billion: the Bridge Formula Program ($27.5 billion distributed to states by formula over five years, with a set-aside for off-system rural bridges) and the Bridge Investment Program ($12.5 billion competitive grant program for large and innovative projects). IIJA represents the largest dedicated federal bridge investment in U.S. history, roughly equivalent in real dollars to four to five years of peak-era HBP funding condensed into a five-year authorization window, intended to make a measurable dent in the backlog of approximately 46,000 structurally deficient bridges.

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