For the second consecutive year, Pennsylvania is home to more structurally deficient bridges than any other state in the country, according to an American Road & Transportation Builders Association
analysis announced this week.
There are 5,050 structurally deficient bridges across the state, a decrease of 168 from 2013, the association said.
Nine of the 10 most heavily traveled compromised bridges in the state are in the Philadelphia region. The second most traveled bridge in the state is the Pennsylvania Turnpike overpass at Susquehanna Road in Upper Dublin Township, Montgomery County. The other eight are in Philadelphia, with six of those along Interstate 95.
A bridge is considered structurally deficient if one of its main elements, such as the roadway or bridge support columns, is rated by inspectors at a four or lower on a zero-to-nine scale. The designation does not mean the bridge poses an immediate safety risk. A nine rating designates a bridge component in excellent condition and zero means it has failed.
Structurally deficient bridges represent 22 percent of the state's total – the second-highest rate in the nation, according to the association, which wants more money spent on infrastructure improvements.
“State and local governments are doing the best they can to address these significant challenges, given limited resources,” the association's chief economist Alison Premo Black said.
The nationwide infrastructure problem could worsen soon, according to Black. The federal Highway Trust Fund, the source of more than half of highway and bridge capital investments made annually by state governments, has suffered five revenue shortfalls between 2008 and 2014. It has been bailed out with nearly $65 billion in revenues from the General Fund just to preserve existing investment levels. The latest extension of federal highway and transit funding through the HTF will expire May 31 without renewal by Congress.
Nearly a dozen states have canceled or delayed road and bridge projects because of the continued uncertainty over the trust fund situation, Black said. ARTBA expects that number to increase as the deadline nears.
Last June, the Interstate 495 bridge that spans the Christina River in Wilmington was closed to traffic for emergency repairs when engineers noticed that four piers holding up the bride were tilting. The bridge didn't reopen until about 10 weeks later.
In 2008, Philadelphia avoided calamity when a structural engineer on his lunch hour in Port Richmond spotted a large crack – eight feet long – in a concrete column holding up an elevated stretch of I-95 over the neighborhood. He contacted PennDOT immediately, and the highway was closed for repairs.
Google/StreetView
