Just a little reminder of what can happen.
There are 61,064 structurally deficient bridges in the United States, according to an analysis of federal data, and just the highest-trafficked 25 out of those 61,064 bridges are
crossed more than 6 million times a day. Just 25 bridges.
According to the analysis by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association:
- The 250 most heavily crossed structurally deficient bridges are on urban interstate highways, particularly in California. Nearly 87 percent of these bridges were built before 1970.
- Pennsylvania (5,050), Iowa (5,022), Oklahoma (4,216), Missouri (3,310), Nebraska (2,654), California (2,501), Kansas (2,416), Mississippi (2,275), Illinois (2,216) and North Carolina (2,199) have the highest numbers of structurally deficient bridges. The District of Columbia (14), Nevada (34), Delaware (48), Hawaii (61), and Utah (102) have the least.
- At least 15 percent of the bridges in eight states—Rhode Island (23 percent), Pennsylvania (22 percent), Iowa (21 percent), South Dakota (20 percent), Oklahoma (18 percent), Nebraska (17 percent), North Dakota (16 percent) and Maine (15 percent)—fall in the structurally deficient category.
The sad thing is, 61,000 is a minor improvement from last year, when there were
63,000 structurally deficient bridges. But with numbers like these, the U.S. needs to be repairing or replacing bridges at a much faster rate. Also consider that the Washington state bridge that collapsed in 2013 was
not rated structurally deficient. So while experts assure us that structurally deficient doesn't mean imminently going to collapse, neither does not structurally deficient mean a bridge is in fantastic shape.
And the fact that there's been so little progress since last year is a reminder of the lack of urgency with which Congress is approaching this problem. The Highway Trust Fund is running out of money and states are already putting infrastructure projects on hold because they're not sure they'll have money to finish them.
You can check out your state's bridge situation here.