The Fix We're In For Archives - Transportation For America

New report ranks worst counties in Oregon for aging bridges, finds state’s 439 structurally deficient bridges carry 1,000 vehicles every minute

Report comes as Oregon’s legislature considers new transportation funding in part to address precisely these types of ongoing repair and maintenance needs

OREGON – A new Transportation for America report analyzes the condition of Oregon’s bridges and finds that 439 are structurally deficient — requiring urgent repair, rehabilitation or replacement. These 439 bridges represent 5.5 percent of all Oregon bridges.

View the Oregon report here.

These bridges are located in areas urban and rural and serve as critical links in moving people to work and goods to market each day. In 2014, Oregon drivers took 1,000 trips per minute over these deficient bridges. Compared to other states, Oregon has done a better job keeping their bridges repaired, but 439 structurally deficient bridges is still far too many, and without continuing to prioritize and fund their repair, progress could slow or even reverse course.

Most bridges are designed with a 50-year lifespan, but these structurally deficient bridges are an average of 55 years old, 14 years older than the average age of all Oregon bridges. One in twelve bridges were built before 1948, which means that 680 bridges have been carrying traffic since before the Korean War and the creation of Medicare.

“Federal and state transportation funding simply hasn’t kept up due to declining gas tax revenues, inflation and improved vehicle fuel efficiency,” said T4America director James Corless. “With action by the legislature, Oregon could join a growing list of  states — 20 and counting — that have raised their own transportation  revenues since 2012. While increasing state funding is a good step, Congress needs  to reward those efforts by fulfilling the  historic federal role as a trusted partner in transportation investment and passing a long-term transportation bill with stable, increased funding. Doing so would allow the State of Oregon and local officials to better address these sorts of ongoing maintenance needs.”

Oregon’s 2003 OTIA bond package prioritized the repair of the state’s busiest structurally deficient bridges, but now the bill is coming due for those bonds and is eating into yearly transportation budgets. Without new funding — and in light of Congress’ inability to pass a long-term transportation funding bill to support states like Oregon — the state will face more competition for fewer financial resources to address the state’s transportation needs.

“Even though the state of repair of our bridges is in relatively good shape in Washington County, we will see declines if we don’t increase revenue to address our backlog of maintenance needs,” said Andrew Singelakis, Washington County’s Director of Land Use and Transportation.

4,032 of the state’s 8,052 bridges are locally-maintained, and 7.2 percent of those locally-maintained bridges are structurally deficient — significantly higher than the state’s average rate of 5.5 percent for all bridges. And a staggering 66.5 percent (292 total) of Oregon’s 439 deficient bridges are maintained by local entities.

Though Oregon does direct a portion of state gas tax revenues to local governments — 30 percent to counties and 20 percent to cities — that money is flexible and with a range of pressing local needs, these local jurisdictions have to make difficult decisions with those funds, and they’re already feeling the squeeze.

“The average value of Wasco County’s yearly agricultural production is over $80 million dollars,” said Arthur Smith, Wasco County Public Works Director. “Most of the cherries, wheat and other products grown here are hauled on county roads, so any closures or load limits placed on county bridges can have a very significant impact. We laid-off 30 percent of our workforce in 2007 because of loss of forest receipts, and are now, more than ever, totally dependent on state and federal funding to fix our bridges. It’s vital that those structures remain in good shape.”

This report can be found online at https://t4america.org/maps-tools/bridges. That site includes an interactive map that allows one to map all bridges within a ten-mile radius of any U.S. address and see their condition and other vital statistics.

Contact:

Oregon: Chris Rall, 971-230-4745
NW Field Organizer
chris.rall@t4america.org

DC: Steve Davis, 202-971-3902
Deputy Communications Director steve.davis@t4america.org

New T4America report chronicles the prevalence of Minnesota’s structurally deficient bridges

As the Minnesota legislature debates legislation to increase transportation funding, T4America released a new report looking at the prevalence of structurally deficient bridges in the state. This report is a state-level version of “The Fix We’re In For,” a report we’ve issued several times since 2011, with updated 2015 statistics for Minnesota.

Click to view the full report and summary data.

Minnesota today has 830 structurally deficient bridges — bridges in urgent need of repair or replacement — representing 6.4 percent of the state’s 12,961 bridges. The average age of these sub-par bridges is 66 years — well over the typical design life of 50 years and nearly double the average age of all Minnesota bridges (35 years old). More than one in ten Minnesota bridges were built before 1948 — which means more than 1,300 bridges are older than the Korean War and creation of Medicare. Minnesota drivers collectively took close to 628 million trips over deficient bridges in 2014. That’s more than 1.7 million trips per day or almost 1,200 trips every minute taken over deficient Minnesota bridges in 2014.

With the Minnesota legislature currently debating bills right now to increase state transportation funding, something that 19 states have successfully undertaken since 2012, it’s a good time to look at the problem and what can be done to address it — especially in light of the uncertainty surrounding federal transportation funding as Congress has repeatedly failed to find stable, long-term funding for the nearly insolvent Highway Trust Fund.

Download the report to see the full summary statistics, data broken up by county, and T4America’s recommendations for Minnesota and states around the country hoping to address their backlog of structurally deficient bridges.

Key Senate committee recognizes the importance of passenger rail, TIGER, transit and repairing our nation’s bridges

Less than a week after the release of The Fix We’re In For — our report on the nation’s bridges showing that one in nine US bridges are structurally deficient — a key Senate committee passed a yearly funding bill that provides new money for repairing these deficient bridges across the country.

The Senate’s Transportation, Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill reported out of the Appropriations Committee this week specifically provides more money to invest in repairing bridges on key corridors.

The $500 million in the bill dedicated specifically to bridge repair is a step in the right direction toward prioritizing the repair of our more than 66,000 structurally deficient bridges.

Transportation for America commends Senator Patty Murray, Senator Susan Collins and the rest of the committee for recognizing the importance of investing in all of our bridges — not just a small segment of them. That’s a key difference between this $500 million and the policy created in last summer’s transportation bill (MAP-21.)

As we pointed out in last week’s report, 90 percent of the country’s structurally deficient bridges were left behind by MAP-21, which made tens of thousands of deficient bridges ineligible for receiving repair dollars from the largest highway program.

For the $500 million for bridge repair in this appropriations bill, almost all highway bridges are eligible to receive dollars for repair, not just a small slice of our country’s bridges. The committee recognizes that the connections these other bridges make in our transportation network are often just as important as our biggest, busiest interstate bridges.

In addition, this money for bridge repair will be provided via a competitive grant program to ensure that it goes to the most vital needs on corridors that are crucial to moving goods and people, in urban and rural areas alike.

Yet new money for bridge repair is far from the only highlight in yesterday’s appropriations bill. There’s also $1.75 billion for rail programs, with $1.45 billion of that intended for Amtrak operations and capital investments – coming a year after Amtrak carried over 31 million passengers and grew their ridership more than 60 percent since 1998, according to the committee release, and another $100 million for passenger rail capital grants to improve service.

The competitive TIGER grant program also got another round of full funding to the tune of $550 million — grants for innovative transportation projects that often cross state lines and combine transit, freight, safety or other diverse uses, and are often hard to fund under older, rigid federal and state programs.

There is also almost $2 billion for investing in new or expanded public transportation across the country through the New Starts transit program.

This bill will head to the full Senate next, but there will be contentious negotiations ahead with the House, which has lower overall funding levels and drastically different ideas for some of these specific programs: No extra money for bridge repair, a significant cut for Amtrak, slightly less money for public transportation and zero dollars for the popular TIGER grant program.

Highlights from the great coverage of our bridge report

It’s easy to be cynical about our often frivolous media environment these days, but it is heartening to see the seriousness with which outlets of all sizes are treating reports about the need to maintain our aging bridges and other infrastructure. In addition to dozens of newspaper and web reports, more than 500 broadcast outlets have picked up yesterday’s release of the “The Fix We’re in For“, the 2013 edition of our report on bridge conditions nationwide.

Among the highest-profile, and best, TV stories was certainly this from NBC Nightly News yesterday evening that we embedded in the previous blog post. (Click to watch.)

In the Washington Post, Ashley Halsey looked at the impact that deteriorating bridges can have short of actually falling down:

When big bridges collapse they make news, but it generally escapes notice when decrepit bridges just cause prices to go up on almost anything that gets to the store by truck. …

The group put out a report Wednesday that uses state and federal statistics to put a fresh face on an existing issue, and to raise a question rarely heard above a whisper in Washington because Capitol Hill hasn’t come up with a good answer to it: Where will the $76 billion come from that the Federal Highway Administration says is needed to repair deficient bridges that carry 260 million vehicles each day?

Larry Copeland, writing for USA Today, noted that Congress made changes last year in the federal transportation program, known as MAP-21, that could have a negative impact on the ability of states and localities to return the most threatened bridges to a state of good repair:

In the two-year federal transportation funding bill it passed last year, Congress eliminated a dedicated fund for bridge repair. “The upshot is that bridge repair now must compete with other transportation needs,” the report says. Money previously targeted for bridge repair was rolled into a new National Highway Performance Program, which can be spent only on highways that are part of the National Highway System, which includes interstates and major state highways. Nearly 90% of structurally deficient bridges are not part of the National Highway System.

The backlog of our country’s deficient bridges is indeed shrinking, but barely

We hope you had a chance to check out our new report released yesterday on the state of our nation’s bridges? 1 in 9 US bridges — about 66,500 in total — are rated structurally deficient and in urgent need of repairs, maintenance or even replacement.

The Fix We’re In For: The State of Our Nation’s Bridges 2013 is an updated version of the data we released two years ago, and the findings are much the same: Everyday, Americans of all different stripes drive across these deficient bridges, with more than 260 million trips taken on them each day. To put that crazy number in perspective, McDonalds’ restaurants will serve only about 64 million worldwide today. And though we’ve gotten about 0.5 percent better nationally in the last two years, from 11.5 to 11 percent deficient, that’s only a difference of about 2,400 deficient bridges.

Check out this piece from NBC Nightly News last night.

As those comments at the very end of the segment point out, we’re better off today than we were a few years ago, so that’s good, right? Well, sure, if you’re content with a rate of improvement that’s slowed to a trickle.

We once made huge progress on repairing our deficient bridges, but today, that progress has almost flatlined. Check out this chart from our report showing the reduction in the number of structurally deficient bridges per four-year period starting back in 1992.

Starting in 1993, shortly after Congress gave bridge repair a greater focus in 1991’s transportation bill (ISTEA), we repaired about 17,000 deficient bridges over the following four years. But in the four-year period from 2009-2012, our log of deficient bridges shrank by only about 5,000 in total. That’s a rate of repair that’s almost three times slower than it was 20 years ago.

If you take a closer look at that improvement over 2011 (about 2,400 fewer deficient bridges), you’ll see that the big improvements made in just two states that heavily prioritized repair, Pennsylvania (-500) and Missouri (-640), account for almost half of that total national reduction of 2,400.

Also keep in mind that the last two years included a heavy load of stimulus spending on repair, and still progress has almost flatlined. Should we be content with hovering around 11 percent of our bridges structurally deficient? Should that be good enough? Can’t we do better?

Considering the dire budgetary straits that many states are in combined with Congress eliminating the dedicated bridge repair program last summer and forcing 90 percent of our deficient bridges to compete with all other pressing local needs for funding, could we finally see a year ahead where the backlog either doesn’t shrink much at all, or even grows somewhat? Certainly.

It’s time to #FixOurBridges, folks.

Tweet about the report, share our infographic (the chart above is included), share the photos on Facebook, and help spread the word far and wide. And don’t forget about our interactive map that lets you map all the bridges near you and locate the deficient bridges.

And Let Congress know it’s time to win the confidence back of the people and be good stewards of our existing infrastructure, before we build new things that we’ll also have to pay to maintain for decades.

Release: New report highlights mounting challenge of aging bridges, ranks states

One in 9 bridges are “structurally deficient” as the average age nears 50 years. And more troubled bridges in our big cities than McDonald’s restaurants nationwide

WASHINGTON, D.C. – One in nine of the bridges and overpasses American drivers cross each day is rated in poor enough condition that some could become dangerous or be closed without near-term repair, according to an updated analysis of federal data released today by Transportation for America.

Nearly 67,000 of the nation’s 605,000 bridges are rated “structurally deficient” and are in need of substantial repair or replacement, according to bridge inspections analyzed in The Fix We’re In For: The State of the Nation’s Bridges 2013. Nearly 8,000 are both structurally deficient and “fracture critical”, meaning they are designed with no redundancy in their key structural components, so that if one fails the bridge could collapse. The Federal Highway Administration estimates that the backlog of troubled bridges would cost $76 billion to eliminate.

The report ranks states and the District of Columbia in terms of the overall condition of the their bridges, with one having the largest share of deficient bridges, 51 the lowest. Twenty-one states have a higher percentage of deficient bridges than the national average of 11 percent. The five states with the worst bridge conditions have a share over 20 percent: Pennsylvania has the largest share of deteriorating bridges (24.5%), followed by Oklahoma (22.0%), Iowa (21.7%), Rhode Island (21.6%), and South Dakota (20.3%).

At the other end of the spectrum, five states have less than 5 percent of their bridges rated structurally deficient: Nevada and Florida lead the rankings with 2.2%, followed by Texas (2.6%), Arizona (3.2%), and Utah (4.3%).

View the report, full data, interactive map and infographic here.

“With the collapse of the I-5 bridge in Washington state last month, coming just six years after an interstate collapse in Minnesota, Americans are acutely aware of the critical need to invest in our bridges as our system shows its age,” said James Corless, director of Transportation for America. “Today, though, there more deficient bridges in our 100 largest metropolitan areas than there are McDonald’s locations nationwide.” Put another way, laid end to end, all the deficient bridges would span from Washington, DC to Denver, Colorado or from Tijuana, Mexico to Seattle — more than 1500 miles.

The need is growing rapidly, the report notes: While most bridges are designed to last 50 years before major overhaul or replacement, American bridges average 43 years old. Age is a major factor in bridge conditions. Roughly half of the structurally deficient bridges are 65 or older. Today there are nearly 107,000 bridges 65 or older, and in just 10 years, one in four will be over 65.

Congress has repeatedly declared the condition and safety of our bridges to be of national significance. However, the money to fix them is getting harder to come by with declining gas tax revenues and a fiscal squeeze at all levels of government. At the same time, Congress made the prospects for bridges even more uncertain last year by eliminating a dedicated fund for them in its update of the federal transportation program. The new law also reduces access to funds for 90 percent of structurally deficient bridges, most of which are owned by cash-strapped local governments.

“Unfortunately, the changes Congress made last year left the health and safety of our bridges to compete with every other priority,” Corless said. “When it updates the law again next year, Congress should ensure that we have both adequate funding and accountability for fixing all our bridges, regardless of which level of government owns them.”

Some in Congress have recognized the issues and are moving to address them, among them U.S. Rep. Nick J. Rahall (D-WV), the ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “Congress simply cannot keep hitting the snooze button when it comes to needed investment in our Nation’s bridges or think that these aging structures can be rehabilitated with rhetoric,” Rahall said. “That is why I am introducing legislation that provides needed federal funding to start to address the startling backlog of structural deficient and functional obsolete bridges.”

The funding uncertainty comes as the rate of bridge repair has slowed dramatically in recent years.

Investments from the stimulus and ongoing transportation programs helped reduce the share of deficient bridges from 11.5 percent to 11 percent since our last report. But the overall repair rate has dropped significantly over the last 20 years. From 1992-1996 the number of deficient bridges declined by 17,000. However, from 2008-2012 the number dropped by only 4,966 – more than three times slower.

The authors suggest several recommendations to ensure that there is both funding for safe and well-maintained bridges and accountability for getting the job done, including:

Increase investment: Current spending levels are precarious and inadequate. In order to bring our rapidly aging infrastructure up to a state of good repair, Congress should raise new, dedicated revenues for surface transportation programs, including bridge repair.

Restore funding for the 180,000-plus bridges that lost eligibility under the new federal transportation program: Under MAP-21, all of the money previously set aside for bridge repair was rolled into the new National Highway Performance Program, and only 10 percent of deficient bridges – and 23 percent of all bridges – are eligible. Congress must restore funding access for all previously eligible bridges.

Prioritize Repair: Congress should require states to set aside a share of their NHPP funds for bridge repair unless the state’s bridges are certified as being in a state of good repair.

View the report, full data, interactive map and infographic here.

One in 9 bridges still “structurally deficient” as average age nears 50 years

One in nine of the bridges and overpasses American drivers cross each day is rated in poor enough condition that some could become dangerous or be closed without near-term repair, according to an updated analysis of federal data released today by Transportation for America.

New data and report: https://t4america.org/resources/bridges

Nearly 67,000 of the nation’s 605,000 bridges are rated “structurally deficient” and are in need of substantial repair or replacement, according to bridge inspections analyzed in The Fix We’re In For: The State of the Nation’s Bridges 2013. Nearly 8,000 are both structurally deficient and “fracture critical”, meaning they are designed with no redundancy in their key structural components, so that if one fails the bridge could collapse. The Federal Highway Administration estimates that the backlog of troubled bridges would cost $76 billion to eliminate.

The report ranks states and the District of Columbia in terms of the overall condition of the their bridges, with one having the largest share of deficient bridges, 51 the lowest. Twenty-one states have a higher percentage of deficient bridges than the national average of 11 percent. The five states with the worst bridge conditions have a share over 20 percent: Pennsylvania has the largest share of deteriorating bridges (24.5%), followed by Oklahoma (22.0%), Iowa (21.7%), Rhode Island (21.6%), and South Dakota (20.3%).

At the other end of the spectrum, five states have less than 5 percent of their bridges rated structurally deficient: Nevada and Florida lead the rankings with 2.2%, followed by Texas (2.6%), Arizona (3.2%), and Utah (4.3%).

We’ll have much more later today, but don’t miss the new data, new report, new interactive map and infographic over at the home for the bridge report.

About those 66,000+ deficient bridges: What did last summer’s transportation law change?

With the second collapse of an Interstate bridge in six years, Americans might expect Congress to leap into action to ensure adequate funding for bridge rehab and replacement. But as we have reminded numerous reporters since an I-5 bridge dropped into Washington’s Skagit River, federal lawmakers took a gamble and eliminated the nation’s dedicated bridge fund last summer.

I-5 photo by the Washington DOT on Flickr.

The bridge fund came into being in 1991, and especially in the first decade afterward, the country made enormous progress repairing deficient bridges. But that progress had slowed to a trickle when Congress took up the transportation funding bill, MAP-21, last summer.

With the I-35W collapse fresh in our minds and progress on repairing deficient bridges slowing, many assumed Congress would think about ways to make bridge repair more of a priority.

Not quite.

Instead, they took a gamble, eliminating the dedicated repair fund so that states could “set their own priorities,” as long as they promised to set targets for the repair of bridges on the National Highway System. That sounds great in principle, until you remember that competition for funds is growing rapidly, with no corresponding drop in the political pressure to build pet projects.

Though they won’t say it out loud, many DOT chiefs like a dedicated maintenance fund because it allows them to say “no” to projects they can’t afford, while helping to ensure existing facilities stay safe and functional. The changes in MAP-21 also don’t give similar attention to bridges not on the National Highway System – 90 percent of all bridges in need of repair – more on this below.

T4America has been a strong advocate of measuring performance against clear targets and goals. But for something as critical as bridge maintenance, there needed to be a well-considered transition period to understand how the new performance management system works, and establish clear targets and guaranteed enforcement mechanisms.

Instead, Congress scrapped the existing bridge repair program and directed USDOT to work with states to cooperate on setting measurable targets for things like bridge condition — but without significant penalties for failure. And considering that MAP-21 is only a two-year bill, states won’t be reporting on these measures until after this bill has already expired.

The second big change made last summer will force state and local communities into painful choices about priorities.

Before MAP-21, all 600,000+ highway bridges were eligible to receive funding for repair under that dedicated bridge repair program.

From the biggest interstate bridge down to that crucial bridge that connects your town across the river to another nearby town, all 66,500-plus deficient bridges could get the dollars dedicated for bridge repair.

Under MAP-21, Congress decided to focus the former bridge repair dollars almost exclusively on a narrow set of roadways known as the National Highway System (NHS). Think of the NHS as the interstates, state highways and most major four-lane and larger highways. The bridges on these roads are our most heavily traveled, no doubt, but they represent only about 10 percent of all structurally deficient bridges.

The other 90 percent will now have to compete with all of the other transportation needs in your community for the flexible funding that can be used on almost anything. And all of those needs will compete for less funding too, reduced from about 60 percent of all funding to 40 percent.

Bridge repair is added into the mix of choices along with regional transit investments, safe streets for all users, congestion relief, other transportation options, and other road repair — leaving communities with tough choices to make.

Bridges STP NHPP

—-

All this comes as our transportation network begins to show its age. At an average age of 43 years, the typical bridge is nearing the end of its 50-year design life, and many thousands are far older than that. Structurally deficient bridges are more than 20 years older on average.

The federal government should be all about making sure that bridges are being systematically upgraded, repaired or replaced. And in the wake of a calamity like the closure of a key commercial corridor, we Americans ought to be all about letting Congress know we’re willing to pay for a safe and secure transportation network, and making lawmakers pay at the ballot box if they won’t deliver it.

Bridge collapse in Washington captures national attention

Unsurprisingly, the sudden collapse of the 58-year-old Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River in Washington state last Thursday night captured the attention of the country and virtually all major national news outlets. Just like in the days after the Minnesapolis I-35W bridge collapse — though mercifully no one died in this incident — reporters scrambled to understand the issue of bridge condition and asked the same question: “how could this happen, and could it happen again somewhere else tomorrow?”

T4 communications director David Goldberg was on site in Washington and did several interviews on television from the bank of the Skagit River to talk about America’s aging bridges and the 66,000-plus that are structurally deficient across the country.

CNN’s Jake Tapper took up the issue head-on with a live interview on The Lead Friday evening (ignore the Arrested Development video thumbnail…):

TAPPER: The American Society of Civil Engineers gave a C-plus to the 600,000 bridges in the U.S.; 11 percent of them are considered structurally deficient. How worried should Americans be when they drive across bridges?

GOLDBERG: Well, the worry is not so much that they will collapse like this with a lot of frequency, but the problem is that the system is aging and it’s aging pretty rapidly. The typical bridge out there was designed to last 50 years and the average age is 44.

And if you look at the bridges that are structurally deficient, the one in 10 bridges that are rated as structurally deficient, something like the typical age of those is 65 years. And that’s going to be — we’re going to have 65-year-old bridges coming every year from now — now on, because we have been building them like mad since the 1950s. And we frankly haven’t been keeping up with them like we should.

TAPPER: And, David, what should the government be doing that in your view they are not doing enough?

GOLDBERG: Well, there’s a couple things that have happened in recent years that Congress in particular needs to pay attention to, because it’s federal money that pays for the big bridges like this across the country.

And they are the ones that stand to hurt us the most if they fall or if we have to close them. And one thing is that we have to recognize the gas tax receipts are going down. We’re getting more fuel- efficient cars and people are driving less, so we have to figure out a way to replace a lot of that money.

And the other thing that has happened in the last year or so is that Congress actually eliminated the fund that was dedicated to bridge repair and sort of said to states, well, you know, you just decide whether they should be fixed or not. But the problem is we have got political pressure to build a lot of the new projects, which competes with that repair money.

So you get situations like this where bridges should have been replaced. They’re not going to be unless we have a dedicated fund.

TAPPER: So, it sounds like you’re saying that the people who make these decisions need to be a little bit more focused on rebuilding and restrengthening things that already exist, as opposed to pursuing new projects?

GOLDBERG: Well, we certainly need to fix things before we build the new stuff that we can’t afford to maintain. So, we have got to get the money together to fix the things and we have got to make it a priority to fix them, because this can’t happen in America.

And NBC Nightly News also led off their Friday evening coverage with the bridge collapse story.

Have you seen another interesting story on the bridge collapse and what it means for transportation policy in your state or nationally? Send it our way via email or in the comments below.

And in case you still haven’t seen it yet, don’t miss our interactive map (and 2011 report) that allows you to search by address and see the status of all bridges around any U.S. address, with inspection data and sufficiency ratings. We’re hoping to update the map and the report in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

Tragic bridge collapse in Washington highlights urgent problem of aging and deficient US bridges

For Immediate Release
Contact: Stephen Davis
202-955-5543 x242
202-569-8218
steve.davis@t4america.org

or David Goldberg
202-412-7930

Transportation for America issued the following statement following last night’s collapse of the Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River near Mount Vernon, Washington.

“The shocking collapse of a busy Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River in Washington State highlights the issue of our country’s aging bridges and what we’re doing to address them. Thankfully, no one was killed or even seriously injured in this collapse, which could not be said about the last high profile bridge collapse in Minnesota.

Nationwide, more than one in ten bridges is rated structurally deficient, in need of close monitoring, urgent repairs, rehabilitation or replacement. We take more than 260 million trips over deficient bridges each day. In just our 102 largest metro areas alone, there are more deficient bridges than there are McDonald’s restaurants in the entire country, 18,000 versus 14,000.

While this particular bridge was not considered structurally deficient at the time of its collapse, it is one of thousands that are well past their intended lifespan and carrying far more traffic than intended at the time they were built. The typical bridge is 43 years old with a design life of 50 years.

Considering that progress on repairing deficient bridges has slowed in the last ten years, Congress took a major gamble in last summer’s new transportation law (MAP-21) by eliminating dedicated funding for repairing highway bridges. Now bridge repair is forced to compete with other transportation needs for funding.

At the same time, our chief source of repair dollars – the federal gas tax – is declining as Americans drive more fuel-efficient cars and fewer miles. Congress urgently needs to address both our funding priorities and how we will pay for them in the face of an aging system and growing population, before the next preventable bridge collapse strands commuters, cripples a local economy and claims lives.”

58-year-old bridge collapses in Washington State on west coast’s most major interstate

Shortly after the evening commute last night (around 7 p.m. local time) an entire section of the Interstate 5 bridge — both north and southbound lanes — over the Skagit River an hour north of Seattle, Washington collapsed and fell into the river, sending two cars tumbling down into the river, injuring three yet miraculously killing no one. One of those who plunged into the river along with his wife called it a “miracle” that no one was killed or more severely injured.

From the Seattle Times:

Rescuers pulled three people with minor injuries from the water after the collapse, which authorities say began when a semitruck with an oversized load struck a steel beam at around 7 p.m.

That caused a massive piece of the northern side of the bridge to wobble, and then fall into the water, taking with it a gold pickup, its travel trailer and an orange SUV.

Rescuers did not believe there was anybody else in the water but were planning a morning search to be sure.

Seattle Times photo by Dean Rutz. Link to gallery of images here.

Perhaps the most amazing part of this story is that on a bridge that carries more than 70,000 cars daily and at a time of day when traffic could be expected to be moderate at the least, only two vehicles fell into the yawning gap and into the water. Along with everyone else, we at T4 America are relieved that no one died in this tragic bridge collapse.

Just like several years ago in Minnesota, attention quickly turned to the bridge itself. So what do we know about it today?

The Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River actually predates the creation of Interstate 5. It was built to carry old US 99 over the river in 1955. When Interstate 5 was built in 1957, it largely followed the US 99 corridor and just like many other bridges, this bridge was folded into the interstate system, though it certainly wasn’t built to today’s interstate standards.

Because of that (and likely other design considerations), the bridge was considered “functionally obsolete” by state and federal inspectors, which is a designation that could mean any number of things, none of which have anything to do with structural safety. The lanes could be narrower than today’s standards, the weights allowed could be less than an interstate bridge built today, or built using materials that would be considered obsolete today.

However, the bridge was not considered “structurally deficient” at the time of collapse, which means that a bridge requires repair, rehabilitation or replacement, along with much more regular inspections. To be considered structurally deficient, one of the three major components of a bridge (deck, superstructure, substructure) has to score a 4 or below on a scale of 1-10.

The data in our interactive map is not the most recent release of federal data, but the ratings for this specific bridge have not changed in the federal National Bridge Inventory that was reported in early to mid 2012 by Washington State. WSDOT likely inspected the bridge again sometime in 2012 after they reported annual bridge data to the federal government, and WSDOT is saying publicly today that the bridge was not structurally deficient and was still only considered functionally obsolete.

Here’s the snapshot from our interactive map of U.S. bridges, which you can use to look up the condition of the bridges near any U.S. address.

(Amazingly, you can see that Google Maps has already updated their map to show that Interstate 5 no longer crosses the Skagit River.)

On a list of structurally deficient bridges in Washington compiled by WSDOT in September 2011, this bridge is not included, though there is at least one other nearby Interstate 5 bridge in Snohomish County that is included, built in 1933. (It’s scheduled for repair, per WSDOT.)

It’s hard to accurately describe how crucial this interstate connection is. I-5 runs from Canada to Mexico within the U.S. and touches almost every single major city on the west coast. It’s a vital corridor not only commuters but also for freight traffic — 12 percent of the daily traffic on this bridge was truck traffic. And this is the main route from Seattle up to Vancouver, certainly a direction that many Seattle region residents might have been planning to travel for the long holiday weekend starting this afternoon.

Those plans are surely on hold, and the ripple effect for freight and other travel up and down the west coast will be felt for some time to come as Washington authorities decide how to handle this painful gap in their transportation network.

We will be back later this morning with a short statement, and follow us along on twitter at @t4america for other news and developments.

PS, here’s the cover of the Seattle Times this morning.

Seattle Times bridge collapse cover

Update: this post incorrectly said the bridge 63 years old at first publication. That has been corrected.

A real plan to fix bridges, or a reprise of attacks on pedestrian safety?

Our reports calling attention to our nation’s deficient bridges have gained enormous traction in recent weeks, to the point that members of Congress and the White House are citing our data in demonstrating the need for infrastructure investment. Unfortunately, some are using them to make disingenuous attempts to eliminate a small program they’ve been trying to put on the chopping block for years.

A New Trail Originally uploaded by M.V. Jantzen to Flickr.

Safe travels for people on foot, on bike and in cars on the new Wilson Bridge in Washington, D.C. Should we really have to choose?

The small Transportation Enhancements program represents less than 2 percent of all transportation funding, and more than half of that 2 percent is used to help make walking and biking safer — a worthy expenditure considering 10 percent of trips are taken on foot and 47,700 people on foot were killed from 2000-2009.

Senator Rand Paul is expected to offer an amendment next week to take all of the TE money and put it toward bridge repair. And a handful of others in Congress have been trying to kill this program for years, well before the current talk of austerity.

Sen. Paul’s proposal doesn’t represent a sincere plan to repair our bridges, but unfortunately, a handful in the media are still taking the bait.

The question is this: With the nation facing a transportation crisis that has gotten little attention outside of policy wonks and Washington, should the federal government continue to mandate that states spend federal dollars on pedestrian safety, bicycling trails, landscaping and historic preservation?

When you ask the wrong question, you often get the wrong answer. And this question in particular has been manufactured by those who would capitalize on the sense of urgency about our bridges to eliminate a program they’ve been after for years.

We’ve covered before how the money spent on walking and biking safety won’t actually do anything to address the bridge backlog. It would take Kentucky 66 years of bike/ped money to fix all of the bridges that are deficient today. And as we wrote in National Journal, “So what if we decided to ignore the significant safety issues faced daily by pedestrians and cyclists, and spent that money instead on bridge repair as some have suggested? We could indeed fix all the currently deficient bridges in the state of Missouri, for example. We’d just need to be patient because it would take 82 years. The State of Washington could get to its backlog in 164 years. And Pennsylvania could finish up with its deficient bridge list at the start of the 24th century.”

Raiding these safety funds to fix our bridges is like trying to stop a freight train with a BB gun. Beyond that, it’s false — and cruel — to suggest that we have to even decide between safety on our bridges and safety on our streets.

We have often pointed out the fact that states have the flexibility to spend up to half of their bridge repair money elsewhere, regardless of the condition of their bridges. But they also have the flexibility to spend most of their Surface Transportation Program dollars, usually the biggest pot of transportation funding, on almost anything they want. They could fix bridges, build transit, highways, bridges, sidewalks; it’s all eligible, and totally up to the states for how they spend it. No mandates from Washington.

Despite false assertions that we require states to build museums or turtle tunnels instead of repairing their bridges, there’s nothing stopping states from getting on top of their deficient bridges. Just like nothing has stopped Florida from spending their TE money each year while also setting up a bridge repair program to target funds first and foremost to bridges that need attention, resulting in some of the best bridges in the country. Meanwhile, Senator Paul’s state of Kentucky, with more than 2,700 deficient bridges, spends $6.50 on new highway capacity for every dollar they spend on bridge repair.

We don’t have to choose between being safe when we walk or being safe when we drive over a bridge. Anyone who tells you otherwise has their own agenda; an agenda that has very little to do with actually repairing our bridges.

It’s time for serious proposals from Congress to fix our crumbling bridges and infrastructure, rather than making a large percentage of people less safe in the name of grabbing a few extra bucks for our bridges.

Along these lines, a good step would be Senator Cardin’s “Preservation and Renewal of Federal-Aid Highways Act.” Tell your Senators to support this important piece of legislation.

New Report Ranks Deficient Bridges by Metro Areas

A new look at structurally deficient bridges in metropolitan areas finds that just a quarter of U.S. bridges, located in our largest metropolitan areas, carry 75 percent of all traffic crossing a deficient bridge each day.

Click to learn more or download the full report, which includes data for all 102 metropolitan areas over 500,000 people.

On the heels of the sudden closure of a major commuting bridge in Louisville, KY, a new report shows that more than 18,000 of the nation’s busiest bridges, clustered in the nation’s metro areas, are rated as “structurally deficient,” according to this new report from Transportation for America.

In Los Angeles, for example, an average 396 drivers cross a deficient bridge every second, the study found. The Fix We’re In For: The State of Our Nation’s Busiest Bridges, ranks 102 metro areas in three population categories based on the percentage of deficient bridges.

The report found that Pittsburgh, PA had the highest percentage of deficient bridges (30.4 percent) for a metro area with a population of over 2 million (and overall). Oklahoma City, OK (19.8 percent) topped the chart for metro areas between 1-2 million, as did Tulsa, OK (27.5 percent) for metro areas between 500,000-1 million.

At the other end of the spectrum, the metro areas that had the smallest percentage of deficient bridges are: Orlando, FL (0.60 percent) for the largest metro areas; Las Vegas (0.20 percent) for mid-sized metro areas; and Fort Myers, FL (0.30 percent) for smaller metro areas.

“There are more deficient bridges in our metropolitan areas than there are McDonald’s restaurants in the entire country,” said James Corless, director of Transportation for America, 18,239 versus roughly 14,000 McDonald’s. “These metropolitan-area bridges are most costly and difficult to fix, but they also are the most urgent, because they carry such a large share of the nation’s people and goods.”

Nearly 70,000 bridges nationwide are rated “structurally deficient” and are in need of substantial repair or replacement, according to federal data. Metropolitan-area bridges carry 75 percent of the trips that are made on structurally deficient bridges, he noted.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) estimates that the backlog of potentially dangerous bridges would cost $70.9 billion to eliminate, while the federal outlay for bridges amounts to slightly more than $5 billion per year.

“The recent shutdown of the Sherman-Minton Bridge between Kentucky and Indiana was yet another reminder of the urgent need to repair our nation’s bridges,” Corless said. “A sincere initiative to fix these bridges would put thousands of people to work while ensuring that these critical links continue to carry people safely to work and that goods can make it to market, now and well into the future.”

Congress has repeatedly declared the condition and safety of America’s bridges to be of national significance. However, the current federal program falls short of the need, even as it allows states to shift funds from maintenance toward new construction, whether or not they can show progress toward rehabilitating deficient bridges.

Some states have worked hard to address the problem and have seen their backlog of deficient bridges shrink in number. However, two problems continue to persist: Existing federal programs offer no real incentives or assurances that aging bridges will actually get fixed; and the current level of investment is nowhere near what is needed to keep up with our rapidly growing backlog of aging bridges.

Last month, President Obama introduced his jobs bill before the Brent Spence bridge in Cincinnati, OH, just weeks after engineers shutdown the Sherman-Minton Bridge due to cracks in the bridge supports, and also identified potential faults in the nearby Kennedy Bridge. Since then, the President has regularly highlighted the poor state of our nation’s bridges and the need to pass a jobs bill that will put construction workers and engineers back to work repairing our bridges and highways.

“The poor condition of our bridges is a problem that is not going away,” said Andy Herrmann, president-elect of the American Society of Civil Engineers, “Most of the nation’s bridges were designed to last 50 years, and today, roughly a third are already 50 years or older.”

In order to prevent future catastrophes on our nation’s roads and bridges, the report recommends that Congress should:

Provide states with increased resources to repair and rebuild. States need federal support to back their efforts to prioritize repair and maintenance.
Ensure that funds sent to states for bridge repair are used only for that purpose, unless a state can show it has addressed its repair needs.
Require that new or rehabilitated be built so that they are safe for everyone who uses them, whether they are in vehicles, on foot or bicycle, or using public transit.

President Obama’s Ohio visit again highlights the vast and growing need to address America’s aging and deficient bridges

On the same day the President visits a critical bridge in Cincinnati, these state and county level data and an interactive map of structurally deficient bridges across the U.S. shows that bridge repair needs touch every community.

President Obama’s visit to the Brent Spence Bridge bordering Ohio and Kentucky calls much-needed attention to the urgency of bridge repair and rehabilitation throughout the country. Those needs are clearly visible in the detailed state-by-state reports, and county level bridge data (including an interactive, searchable map of every deficient bridge in America) being made available today at https://t4america.org/resources/bridges/states/.

The President’s event comes on the heels of last week’s closure of the 49-year old Sherman Minton Bridge over the Ohio River between Louisville, Kentucky and New Albany, Indiana after cracks were found in the support structure. Like similar bridges nationwide, the heavily travelled bridge is crucial to the economy of both states and for commuters crossing the river to get to work.

Today, nearly 70,000 bridges nationwide— about one in nine —are classified as “structurally deficient,” in need of close monitoring and near-term repair, according to data from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Transportation agencies would need $70.9 billion to overcome the current backlog of deficient bridges.

“As the President has noted, a serious effort to address the backlog of structurally deficient bridges would be an immediate source of jobs, doing work that desperately needs to be done,” said James Corless, director of Transportation for America. “Our coalition members, in nearly every state of the union, have long noted this situation, and are gratified to hear the call echoed by high-profile leaders.”

Transportation for America’s spring report, “The Fix We’re In For: The State of Our Nation’s Bridges” tallied the structurally deficient bridges nationwide. T4 America is also making available county-by-county lists of structurally deficient bridges, and their rankings, for those who would like to evaluate the depth of their own local needs.

In addition to funding needed maintenance today, T4 America urges Congress to also enact tough guidelines in the next transportation bill to ensure that precious taxpayer dollars prioritize making existing bridges safe. One logical step forward would be Senator Ben Cardin’s Preservation and Renewal of Federal-Aid Highways Act, which would require the Secretary of Transportation to establish “state of good repair” standards for highways and bridges that receive federal funding, ensuring that federal dollars are targeted toward the most pressing needs first and holding states accountable for improving the condition of their infrastructure.

“Congress has a dual task right now of giving a weak economy a needed boost while creating the conditions for future growth and economic opportunity,” Corless added. “Providing a near-term boost to rebuild infrastructure, coupled with a comprehensive update of the long-term federal transportation bill will put people to work building the physical assets that will serve the country for decades to come. We appreciate the President’s focus on infrastructure and look forward to working with both the administration and Congress on getting something done.”

You can learn more about “The Fix We’re in For: The State of Our Nation’s Bridges” at https://t4america.org/resources/bridges/

In wake of Ohio River bridge closure, NBC Nightly News examines the sorry state of U.S. bridges

Over the weekend, NBC Nightly News ran a sharp piece on our country’s structurally deficient bridges, focusing on the data in the T4 America bridge report.

At least one person somewhere in the U.S. is driving over a structurally deficient bridge every minute, according to T4 America director James Corless in a report on the woeful condition of our nation’s bridges on NBC Nightly News Sunday evening.

Brought into the national spotlight because of the recent closure of a highly-trafficked interstate bridge over the Ohio River in Louisville, Kentucky and the President’s scheduled appearance at a Cincinnati-area bridge this Thursday, more national media outlets (and Americans and their leaders in Congress, one would hope) are paying attention to the real-life impacts of underinvestment in infrastructure.

Watch the video here on NBC

Though years of underfunding, neglect and a failure to prioritize repair of the existing system have led us to this critical juncture, that doesn’t mean that we can’t choose a better future for our country. As the NBC piece (and the counter at the top of our website) shows us, Congress has failed for two years to write and pass a comprehensive transportation bill that could get us moving in the right direction.

But just putting more money into transportation won’t automatically solve the problem of deficient bridges. We need to make sure that money is spent wisely, which means making sure that money gets targeted first and foremost to taking care of what we’ve already built. Some instructive comments from our statement last week on the closure of the Sherman Minton Bridge in Louisville:

“States also need to be held accountable to address the growing backlog of structurally deficient bridges with their federal transportation dollars,” Corless added. “States can currently spend half of their money dedicated to bridge repair on almost any other type of project. Today the federal program lacks a system to ensure that federal money goes to repair the worst bridges or address the backlog before new highways are built…”

“One logical step forward would be Senator Ben Cardin’s Preservation and Renewal of Federal-Aid Highways Act, which would require the Secretary of Transportation to establish “state of good repair” standards for highways that receive federal funding, ensuring that federal dollars are targeted toward the most pressing needs first and holding states accountable for improving the condition of their systems.”

In case you’re new to T4 America, don’t miss our report on the country’s deficient bridges: The Fix We’re In For. State-by-state statistics are available, as well as a tool that allows you to find all of the deficient bridges in your area.

Structurally deficient bridges and President Obama’s jobs bill

Last night after President Obama’s speech to Congress, attention turned to analysis of the speech and the President’s plan to take it on the road to the districts of key Representatives and Senators. Chris Matthews of MSNBC referenced Transportation for America and our data on structurally deficient bridges as an important part of making the very local case for more federal transportation spending.

Click to view if you can’t see the embedded video

Will he take this all the way home? To people like Eric Cantor — he won’t get his vote probably — but bring it home? We now have a list from Transportation For America of thousands and thousands of bridges bridges across the country that are recognized to be structurally deficient. Will he go into the face of Eric Cantor, into the media market of Richmond, Virginia, and in the suburbs and list the bridges below safety code that Eric Cantor will have to vote to keep below safety code if he refuses for vote for this bill? How local will they make this fight?

It’s worth clarifying very quickly that structurally deficient bridges aren’t necessarily below any type of safety code. Yes, the I-35W Minneapolis bridge was rated structurally deficient when it collapsed, but state DOTs will tell you that they close bridges that are unsafe. Deficient bridges urgently require replacement or repair. Neglecting repairs to these bridges now will cost us millions more down the road and increase the chance that they have to be closed or limited to traffic one day, also costing money in lost time and productivity.

But the point Chris Matthews makes is a salient one.

The case for more federal transportation spending is best made at the local district level. A lot of House members have voted against spending more federal dollars on transportation, but aren’t shy about inserting their own earmarks for new roads or bridges or vying for stimulus dollars to address glaring transportation needs back home.

Talking about structurally deficient bridges takes on a different tone when one talks about the numbers of bridges in a particular member’s district that will remain deficient if spending isn’t increased or targeted to improve their condition.

Making a federal issue a local one could turn out to be a smart strategy to win support for a proposal that is “ambitious and pragmatic,” in the words of T4 Director James Corless.

Newspaper editorial boards urge action on repairing bridges

Pittsburgh Bridge Originally uploaded by mikeyexists to Flickr.

In the days since our comprehensive bridge report (The Fix We’re In For) was released, at least one governor has promised action and several newspaper editorials have urged their states to prioritize repair and address the growing backlog of deficient bridges.

In Pennsylvania, with the worst bridges in the country, there was little surprise that the report would make big headlines. New Governor Tom Corbett told the Pittsburgh Post Gazette that his transportation secretary will be creating a task force to look at the issue and come up with funding strategies to repair bridges — even telling the Tribune Review he’d consider selling state-owned liquor stores to pay for it. He’s also pledging to continue an accelerated bridge repair program created under former Governor Ed Rendell that has helped in recent years.

Today, the Post Gazette published an editorial on the issue focusing on what the state can do to help move Pennsylvania down the rankings in the coming years.

As if Gov. Tom Corbett doesn’t have enough financial challenges, last week brought a reminder of another problem that is not going away and will only get worse. According to Transportation for America, a coalition of groups working for national transportation reform, Pennsylvania still leads the nation in structurally deficient highway bridges.

What is depressing about this finding issued last Wednesday is that Gov. Ed Rendell made a priority of fixing bridges. By selling bonds and using federal stimulus funding, the Rendell administration did a lot of good work on bridges, without which the situation would be more dire. But, as this report shows, it’s hard to make up for years of neglect…

…The fact that Pennsylvania remains No. 1 in bad bridges can’t be blamed on Mr. Corbett, but the headlines that would come if a Minneapolis-type bridge disaster happened here would be part of his legacy. This latest report is a reminder that finding creative funding for bridges isn’t just a challenge — it’s a necessity.

As the Post Gazette hints at, states have a lot of power within the federal framework to do a better job with repairing their bridges. As our report notes, states aren’t even required to spend all of their bridge repair money on bridges. But a large part of the solution to this problem will come from Congress and the next multi-year transportation bill. That bill must provide more funding for bridge repair and it should hold states accountable for fixing their bridges with that money.

Until then, states with older infrastructure and a large backlog of deficient bridges, like Pennsylvania, will be fighting this battle at a bit of a disadvantage.

(Ed. note: The Times-Picayune in New Orleans offered a similar editorial)