All bridges are not created equal. A pair of appeals for state funds to support bridge projects — one by a national sports association and another by a local economic development organization — exemplify bad and good uses of state community investment dollars.

The first proposal has been made by the United States Golf Association (USGA), for $5 million in state funds to help build a third pedestrian bridge over the Turnpike between the two halves of Oakmont Country Club. It is, on its face, brazen and ridiculous to ask Pennsylvania taxpayers to fund an improvement at one of the most prestigious private golf clubs in America.

This isn’t to say that the project would have no public benefit. Around 200,000 people attended the U.S. Open at Oakmont this year, and almost all of them passed acr

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