MINNEAPOLIS — A year after the worst U.S. bridge collapse in a generation brought calls for immediate repairs to other spans, two of every three of the busiest problem bridges in each state — carrying nearly 40 million vehicles a day — have had no work beyond regular maintenance.
A review of repairs on each state’s 20 most-traveled bridges with structural deficiencies found just 12 percent have been fixed. In many states, the most common approach was to plan for repairs later rather than fixing problems now.
The bridges reviewed by The Associated Press — 1,020 in all — are not in imminent danger of collapse, state engineers and highway officials say. But the officials acknowledge the structures need improvement, many sooner rather than later.
The collapse of the eight-lane Interstate 35W bridge into the Mississippi River on Aug. 1, 2007, killed 13 people and brought immediate calls for repairs to bridges across the nation.
Soaring construction costs
The failure to follow through was not because of lack of effort, officials said. Soaring construction costs, budget shortages, election-year politics, a backlog of bridge projects, competing highway repairs and bureaucracy often held bridge work to only incremental progress.
AP gathered information on the repair status from 48 states and Washington, D.C. In six states, data could not be obtained for some locally owned bridges. Louisiana and Nevada failed to respond.
The AP findings:
• Sixty-four percent of the bridges received no work beyond regular maintenance, though most were targeted for some kind of future work.
• Twelve percent had their structural defects fixed — usually through a major rehabilitation or outright replacement.
• An additional 24 percent have seen a partial improvement, either through a short-term repair to temporarily address the defect or an ongoing project that is not yet complete.
The worst were Indiana, Oklahoma, New Hampshire and South Carolina, where work was conducted on only one of each state’s 20 most heavily traveled structurally deficient bridges.
“Relying on miracles”
“At some point, relying on miracles is not going to be the best way to manage our system,” said Pete Rahn, the transportation commissioner in Missouri. “I would pray we don’t have to have another disaster to bring about the right attention to this. I see very little political will there.”
Added Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell: “The Minneapolis incident obviously caused people to stand up and take notice, but I think it got dwarfed by the bad economic news.”
“There’s plenty of blame to go around,” said Rendell, who argues that the federal government bears a larger share than states, which are struggling to make do with limited help.
Rahn, one of many state transportation officials interviewed who said it is long past time for Congress and the states to invest in bridges and roads, blames the federal government most of all.
But as Congress debates highway spending, some members criticize states for not devoting enough highway money to bridges.
After the Minnesota bridge collapse, 17 states proposed ambitious bridge and road spending totaling $13.7 billion. To date, $8.3 billion has won approval in six states, including $160 million in Maine, $600 million in Missouri and $6.6 billion in Minnesota.
But in 33 states and Washington, D.C., there was no significant new spending and little debate.
Also, the Bush administration has promised to veto the latest $1 billion proposed increase, itself a fraction of the estimated $140 billion needed for repairs on bridges alone.
“Thirteen people were killed, and not much happened,” said engineer William Schutt, a critic of the status quo of bridge assessment and repair. “Who’s to blame? Congress, the American people — for putting up with it.”
In Colorado
The AP’s review found just one of Colorado’s troubled bridges had been fully repaired since the Minneapolis bridge collapse. That bridge is along Interstate 25 in El Paso County. Others have received partial or temporary fixes in the last year.
The Colorado Department of Transportation has estimated that it would cost $300 million or more to fully repair or replace all 110 bridges in the state rated “poor.” The money is not currently available.
