PennDOT officials called Act 89’s funding mechanism a “historic investment” in infrastructure assets, putting the state in a better position to maintain and reconstruct its aging roads and bridges. “We are on track to award roughly $2.4 billion in construction contracts statewide this year for roughly 820 highway and bridge projects. We did $2.5 billion last year, and those numbers compare with the $1.5 billion we would have been limited to each year without the additional resources from Act 89,” PennDOT spokeswoman Erin Waters-Trasatt said in an email. The act altered and ultimately will uncap a state wholesale gas tax. The act also means, for the first time in decades, Pennsylvania is not the No.-1 ranked state in the nation for structurally deficient bridges, according to Waters-Trasatt.