Editorial: Nation’s Bridges In Dire Need Of Repairs

It will take $140 billion—or more—to make necessary major repairs to one of every four U.S. bridges. That was the revelation presented by transportation officials across the country in a report issued on July 28. According to an Associated Press story, state officials believe that “repairs are one element of the need for more federal funding to improve the country’s deteriorating transportation infrastructure.”

Federal Highway Administration statistics show that 152,000 out of the nation’s 600,000 bridges are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, the report said. Unpleasant news from Pete Rahn, president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and head of the Missouri Department of Transportation, is, “States are doing their best to improve them [bridges], but construction costs are skyrocketing…forcing states to delay needed repairs.”

Hovering near the top layer of our memory banks is the fatal bridge collapse last year in Minneapolis. But bridge–evaluation reports run the entire gamut from functionally obsolete to nightmare-producing cracks in bridge support columns.

Admittedly, there are bridges and there are bridges. We’re not sure if the 152,000 bridges that are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete are all bridges for which the federal government bears some responsibility. It stands to reason that there are bridges around the country for which the feds are not responsible.

Having said that, the federal or state or local status of bridges has no bearing on our message. Bridges, and many other structures (including dams and levees), must be monitored and evaluated as to structural integrity on a regular basis. How often these evaluations should be done is for government to decide, but there should be no deviation in the schedules, and the entity doing the evaluations should not be subject to political influence. Evaluation reports should be turned over officially to the entity of government responsible for the care and maintenance of the structures. A copy of the report should be filed with the U.S. Department of Transportation, even if it is merely a matter of establishing an official record that the structure was evaluated and the caretakers were notified of its condition on a particular date. The reports should also be made available to the press. Obviously, safety is the key factor.

Further, those who actually do the evaluating should be qualified engineers familiar with bridge construction and stress statistics. They should not be unqualified political supporters who are given sweet positions in return for their loyalty. Perhaps they should be federal teams, and the bridge caretakers should pay the expense of the periodic evaluations, so as not to make the general public nationwide responsible for the cost.

It goes without saying that in too many situations involving failing infrastructure, those responsible for care and upkeep were warned numerous times, but political influence reared its ugly head and maintenance was neglected or ignored totally. Much of that was seen to have happened around the New Orleans area.

A major characteristic of infrastructure evaluations is that the process should be simple and kept that way. One department of a city, or a state, or federal government should be totally responsible for maintenance of particular structures. There is no need for half a dozen boards and commissions to fight over what to do and when to do it. There should be no easy way to pass the buck. If bridges, for instance, need fixing, they need fixing. If an evaluation reveals minor problems, then it is possible and perhaps even practical to fix other problems first. But minor problems left to swelter in the heat soon become major problems. The public should know exactly who is responsible, and those responsible should be elected officials who can be relieved if they fail in their oversight responsibilities.

Financing maintenance is a major issue. Those responsible for seeing that proper maintenance is done should be well–schooled in the business of who finances what and when. In any case, it will be up to local, state or federal government (perhaps a combination of two or three) to get the financing in order in a timely fashion. We make no suggestion here that if the “caretakers” of specific bridges are denied necessary funds that they should be “unelected.”

There are lots of unnecessary projects carried out each year around the nation. This kind of spending should not be allowed to take place at the expense of proper infrastructure maintenance.

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