By Joseph Picard: Subscribe to Joseph's RSS feed
July 23, 2010 12:05 PM EDT
Evening rush hour traffic was moving slowly over the Interstate 35 bridge above the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Aug. 1, 2007, when the central span sudden collapsed, at once followed by the adjoining spans. The deck of the bridge, and a hundred or so vehicles and 18 construction workers on it, came crashing down into the river and onto the banks to either side.
Thirteen people were killed and 145 injured. The bridge was 40 years old, and gave way under the strain of increased weight from increased traffic, concrete dividers and heavy construction equipment, investigators found.
The tragic incident cast a stark light on the condition of our nation's bridges. But not enough action has followed the insight, according to testimony Thursday before a House committee.
"Three years after the Minneapolis collapse, nearly 25 percent of the nation's bridges are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete," said Rep. James Oberstar, D-MN, and chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
Oberstar cited figures from several federal reports on bridge safety. Of the 603,245 bridges in the National Bridge Inventory, 149,647 bridges -- nearly one in four-- were in need or repair or replacement.
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"The transportation system is aging," said Malcolm Kerley, chief engineer of the Virginia Dept. of Transportation. "The average bridge is now 43 years old. Truck traffic has nearly doubled in the past 20 years, and the trucking industry is pushing for heavier loads. Many Interstate bridges are reaching the end of their useful lives. And traffic keeps increasing."
Oberstar said the nation faces "a tremendous and growing" backlog of bridges that need attention.
"According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, more than $98 billion could be invested immediately in a cost-beneficial way to replace or otherwise address existing bridge deficiencies," Oberstar said.
He noted that , in 2008, the House passed the "National Highway Bridge Reconstruction and Inspection Act," which included a variety of provisions to strengthen federal oversight of bridge inspections. But the bill failed in the Senate.
Government agencies found that: states frequently made errors in calculating bridge load ratings, and one in ten structurally deficient bridges on the National Highway System were incorrectly load-rated; more than 40 percent of state-level load ratings posted on bridges did not match the information the state submitted to the federal government; and nearly eight percent of structurally deficient bridges that were required to have maximum safe weight signs posted on them did not, allowing overweight vehicles to cross.
"This is unacceptable. Bridges, and bridge sufficiency, are critical to ensuring the safety of the traveling public," Oberrstar said. "These bridge-related provisions are among the many reasons that Congress must delay no longer in passing a comprehensive surface transportation authorization bill."
Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-OR, said the Minneapolis bridge collapse "gave us a concrete example of the negative consequences of our lack of infrastructure investment."
"American motorists might not know exactly who is setting highway bridge performance targets or what those targets are - but they have a right to know that the bridges they cross every day are safe," DeFazio said, adding that the hearing is a step toward a complete Surface Transportation Authorization Act.
Joseph Come, assistant inspector general for the federal DOT, said that approximaterly $100 billion is needed to address current bridge deficiencies. He said that, of the $48 billion in ARRA funding designated to the DOT, $27.5 billion, or 57 percent, has gone so far for highway and bridge infrastructure projects.
King Gee, assiociate administrator for infrastructure at DOT, said bridge conditions are improving but there is still much to be done.
"It is important to monitor current activities aimed at maintaining a safe inventory of structures," he said.
Gee noted that "America has experienced few catastrophic bridge failures from undetected structural flaws or defects. Most failures today occur because of natural events such as flooding or earthquakes or from vehicles that exceed the load capacity of the bridge. The international bridge community looks to the United States as leaders in the bridge inspection field and seeks our assistance and guidance."
Gee added that the U.S. also studies how other countries handle their bridge inspections to improve our own system.
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