When it comes to the nation's many structurally deficient and fracture critical bridges, the message that politicians and engineers alike have for us is this: Yes, the bridges need to be repaired or replaced, but don't worry, they're very unlikely to collapse under you. The latter point is important, since many such bridges aren't going to be replaced or fully repaired anytime soon, and
there sure are a lot of them:
An Associated Press analysis of 607,380 bridges in the most recent federal National Bridge Inventory showed that 65,605 were classified as "structurally deficient" and 20,808 as "fracture critical." Of those, 7,795 were both – a combination of red flags that experts say indicate significant disrepair and similar risk of collapse.
Fracture critical bridges are ones where the failure of one component could lead to a collapse, as we saw in the
I-5 bridge over the Skagit River in Washington state last spring. Structurally deficient bridges, meanwhile, show significant deterioration in the deck, superstructure, or substructure. Every day, a whole lot of people go over the nearly 8,000 bridges that meet both definitions:
The AP zeroed in on the Douglass bridge and others that fit both criteria – structurally deficient and fracture critical. Together, they carry more than 29 million drivers a day, and many were built more than 60 years ago. Those bridges are located in all 50 states, plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, and include the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, a bridge on the New Jersey highway that leads to the Lincoln Tunnel, and the Main Avenue Bridge in Cleveland.
Many bridges were built to last 50 years—more than 50 years ago. Today, politicians insist the government doesn't have enough money to fix or replace them, and of course, the amount required gets bigger as time passes and bridges get older. It's a simple choice for government: What's the priority, safe bridges (combined with job creation repairing or replacing them) or low taxes on billionaires? Of course, we know the Republican answer to that question, and it ain't safety and jobs.