Md., Va. Diverted Bridge Money

"We don't know because we can't track the life of that dollar," Grossman said. "Once they are transferred into the other fund, they become part of that fund."

Officials follow bridge money as it moves from one account to another, but once it reaches a general account, they don't note which specific projects received bridge money.

Maryland and Virginia, for instance, moved about $67.7 million from the main federal bridge program since 2004, records show.

Maryland transferred $32.5 million from its share of the federal bridge program in 2006 to another federal pot, known as the Surface Transportation Program. State highway officials provided a list of $24.1 million worth of Surface Transportation projects that year. It showed $311,382 went to "Cleaning/Painting various bridges in Allegany and Garrett Counties." The other $23.8 million went to a host of resurfacing, traffic control and other projects.

The records provided by the State Highway Administration did not make clear how the more than $8 million in additional transferred bridge funds, which officials said were applied to later years, were spent.

Highway administration officials said they solicited bids for $75.7 million in bridge projects the year the transfer took place. Capital spending on bridge-only projects grew from $54.8 million in 2003 to $86.5 million in 2007, they noted.

Virginia transferred $35.2 million from the Highway Bridge Replacement and Rehabilitation Program in 2004, also moving it to the Surface Transportation Program. After the move, the surface transportation account for the year totaled $69.5 million, and records show that about $27 million of that was spent on bridges.

The remaining money in the surface transportation account that year funded such things as a road and wetland project in Hampton Roads and widening Centreville Road in Manassas Park, according to state and federal records.