Rep. Rick Larsen, WA-02, released the following statement today regarding the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) determinations about the causes of the Skagit River Bridge collapse on May 23, 2013.

“The Skagit River Bridge collapse into the waters below last year dramatically severed a vital trade corridor for the Pacific Northwest and shook people’s confidence in the safety of their roadways. Since then, officials at all levels of government worked tirelessly to get traffic flowing again in less than a month. And now we have more answers through NTSB’s investigation about what happened to bring the bridge down and how we can prevent bridge collapses in the future.

“The NTSB report is a reminder that safety is everyone’s responsibility. Local, state and federal governments need to keep working together to share information and make investments that will prevent our infrastructure from crumbling beneath us.

“We cannot have a big league economy with little league infrastructure. That’s why I will continue to push to make sure our roads and bridges get the funding they need to be safe, reliable, and to keep our economy moving,” Larsen said.

Larsen is an original cosponsor of the SAFE Bridges Act, which would provide $5.5 billion to repair structurally deficient bridges across the country.

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