https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/
We have been under-funding maintenance for decades and problems, such as this example, will be on the rise given the additional stressors due to climate change.
It is a problem of political will. To quote Vonnegut, "Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance."
Note that the article says "The tunnels and canals, though old, were maintained regularly".
Maintaining a structure doesn't prevent the concrete from spalling (as the chemical bonds that bind the concrete age and degrade), nor does it necessarily pick up on failing earthen tunnels in hard to inspect areas.
Many bridges across the country are going on 100 years old, and have a ~50 year design life. Structurally they are deficient, often undersized for the modes of traffic using them, and structural failure (which is very possible) would likely kill people. US infrastructure needs heavy investment, rather than the neglect it has seen for decades.
Per capita, there are some countries higher like Canada. but it's pretty clear that US bridges are unusually bad compared to most other developed countries.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridge_failures#2000%E...
But we're not building either! Where are the US's fancy new high speed trains?
I realize that's not quite the same thing, but this isn't a case of existing infrastructure being neglected in favor of shiny new projects. We're just not putting basically any money into public infrastructure.