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Thousands of U.S. Bridges Deemed Deficient

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More than 54,000 bridges along the Interstate Highway System in the United States were rated as “structurally deficient,” according to new analysis conducted by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association’s (ARTBA). This was just one of many of the concerning statistics detailed by ARTBA in its 2018 Deficient Bridge Report on Jan. 29.

Other critical details include:

  • The average age of a structurally deficient bridge is 67 years, compared to 40 years for non-deficient bridges.
  • Repair needs are identified among one in three U.S. bridges (226,837 total) and one in three bridges (17,726) along the Interstate Highway System (IHS).
  • There is the equivalent of one “structurally deficient” bridge for every 27 miles of the 48,000-mile IHS, which carries 75% of the nation’s heavy truck traffic.

The ARTBA report echoes the results of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Report Card for 2017, wherein the U.S. received a performance of D+ based on the physical condition and needed investments for improvement. As reported by Risk Management magazine in 2017, the U.S. spends only 2.5% of its gross domestic product on infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimated that, over the next 10 years, the gap between planned investments in infrastructure and investment needs could exceed $2.1 trillion, with the largest investment gap in the transportation sector, followed by schools, electric utilities and water/wastewater systems.

With Americans crossing these deficient bridges 174 million times daily, there is reason for concern among private citizens and companies. At the current pace of repair or replacement, it would take 37 years to remedy all of them, said Alison Premo Black, PhD, ARTBA chief economist, who conducted ARTBA’s analysis.

“An infrastructure package aimed at modernizing the Interstate System would have both short- and long-term positive effects on the U.S. economy,” she said, noting that traffic bottlenecks cost the trucking industry more than $60 billion per year in lost productivity and fuel.

The report was issued just ahead of President Trump’s first State of the Union address on Jan. 30, in which he identified a struggling infrastructure and requested legislation aimed at capital improvements:

Tonight, I am calling on the Congress to produce a bill that generates at least $1.5 trillion for the new infrastructure investment we need. Every federal dollar should be leveraged by partnering with state and local governments and, where appropriate, tapping into private sector investment—to permanently fix the infrastructure deficit.

Any bill must also streamline the permitting and approval process—getting it down to no more than two years, and perhaps even one.

National Public Radio reported that the White House initially called for a $1 trillion rebuilding plan but raised the stakes during the address, and specifically called out certain phrasing.

“That word ‘generates’ is important,” wrote NPR contributors in an analysis of the speech, “because this would not mean the U.S. government is spending $1 trillion.” President Trump has allocated $200 billion in federal spending on infrastructure. “The bulk of the $200 billion would go toward leveraging state and local money and private investment,” NPR’s David Schaper reported.

Long-Awaited Infrastructure Repair Bill Nears Passage

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Road work

While short-term patches have been used to shore up our nation’s infrastructure for years, leaving large, long-term projects such as bridge repairs to languish, those issues may be remedied by a bill passed by Congress on Tuesday. The measure approves a long-awaited five-year measure of more than $300 billion to fund highways and mass transit. Known as TEA-21, the bill is expected to win final passage by the House and Senate.

“Right now, 11% of our bridges across the country are rated structurally deficient and another 13% are considered functionally obsolete,” Andrew W. Herrmann, 2012 president of ASCE and principal with Hardesty & Hanover LLP, an infrastructure engineering firm, told Risk Management in February 2014. “This means they were designed to an older standard, so they may not have the same lane widths or turning radius or may have been designed to carry lesser loads.”

Deterioration of the nation’s infrastructure jeopardizes public safety, threatens quality of life, and drains the U.S. economy. “If they have to start closing down, restricting or putting mileage postings on bridges, the economy will be affected,” said Herrmann, who served on the advisory council for the 2003, 2005 and 2013 report cards and chaired the council for the 2009 edition. “Bridges are the most pressing need in the infrastructure overall. You can have all the roads and highways you want, but if you don’t have the bridges to cross the rivers and intersections, it slows everything down.”

In California alone, 58% of roadways require rehabilitation or pavement maintenance, 20% need major maintenance or preventative work and 6% need to be replaced. Traffic volume is also growing 10 times faster than lane miles, the California Transportation Commission reported.

According to the Wall Street Journal, highlights of the bill include:

  • Extending the Highway Trust Fund through Sept. 30, 2020, and allowing for total transportation spending of as much as $305 billion.
  • Renewing the Export-Import Bank through September 2019.
  • Separating the budget for Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor services from the rest of the passenger rail network. This would allow the carrier to invest more in the heavily-traveled lines between Boston and Washington.
  • Preserving a program that allots a share of mass-transit funding for seven high-density Northeast states, including New York and New Jersey. The House had earlier voted to eliminate the set-aside and use the money to fund bus programs whose funding had been slashed in 2012.
  • Providing a total $10.8 billion for freight projects, including establishing a $4.5 billion grant program designed to award money to large-scale freight projects.
  • Providing the largest share of funds to the federal highway-aid program, with authorization to spend $207.4 billion over five years.
  • Providing the next largest share of funding to mass transit projects, at $48.7 billion over five years, an increase over levels approved by the House.

Are Critical Infrastructure Issues Finally Being Addressed?

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The recent collapse of an Interstate 75 overpass in Cincinnati, killing a worker and injuring a truck driver, is yet another reminder of the plight of America’s infrastructure, which is estimated to require billions of dollars to bring up to 2015 standards.

The bridge that collapsed had been replaced and was being torn down as part of an extended project to increase capacity on a congested, accident-prone section of the interstate, according to the Associated Press.

President Obama, speaking today in Saint Paul, Minnesota, outlined several proposals, including launching a competition for $600 million in competitive transportation funding and investing in America’s infrastructure with a $302 billion, four-year surface transportation reauthorization proposal, according to a press release from the White House. Obama also plans to “put more Americans back to work repairing and modernizing our roads, bridges, railways, and transit systems, and will also work with Congress to act to ensure critical transportation programs continue to be funded and do not expire later this year.”

More and more, states are finding ways to fund infrastructure repair. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, for example, in his State of the State address, proposed $3 billion in loans and grants for infrastructure upgrades, including $1.3 billion for the Thruway and the new Tappan Zee Bridge, which is under construction. The money, he said, would come from a a $5.4 billion windfall from bank settlements.

A report by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), “Failure to Act: The Impact of Current Infrastructure Investment on American’s Economic Future,” found that the cascading impact of putting off repairs affects the entire economy. The report concluded that, between 2013 and 2020, there will be an investment gap of about $846 billion in surface transportation.

At risk are a number of bridges and overpasses. According to Risk Management magazine:

“Right now, 11% of our bridges across the country are rated structurally deficient and another 13% are considered functionally obsolete,” Andrew W. Herrmann, 2012 president of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and principal with Hardesty & Hanover LLP, an infrastructure engineering firm. “This means they were designed to an older standard, so they may not have the same lane widths or turning radius or may have been designed to carry lesser loads.”

Deterioration of the nation’s infrastructure jeopardizes public safety, threatens quality of life, and drains the U.S. economy. “If they have to start closing down, restricting or putting mileage postings on bridges, the economy will be affected,” said Herrmann, who served on the advisory council for the 2003, 2005 and 2013 report cards and chaired the council for the 2009 edition.

“Bridges are the most pressing need in the infrastructure overall. You can have all the roads and highways you want, but if you don’t have the bridges to cross the rivers and intersections, it slows everything down.”

He observed that, from a bridge engineer’s perspective, investments need to be made to keep bridges in good repair. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) estimates that it needs $20.5 billion annually to eliminate the nation’s backlog of bridge repairs by 2028, but only $12.8 billion has been budgeted. The challenge, then, for federal, state and local governments is to increase investments in bridges by $8 billion annually.

Obama Calls Attention to Aging Infrastructure

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Tappan Zee Bridge. Photo by Laura Glickstein

President Obama is visiting the Tappan Zee Bridge, 25 miles north of Midtown Manhattan, on Wednesday to raise awareness of the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. The message is that funding for projects such as roads and bridges is to expire this fall.

The president’s speech will highlight the need for congressional action on infrastructure spending, the White House announced on Saturday. Obama will use his visit to the bridge site, where work is underway on pilings for a new bridge, to highlight the urgency of replenishing the Highway Trust Fund. The administration predicts the fund will be insolvent by the end of the summer.

Refurbishing the infrastructure is critical, as the American Society of Civil Engineers grades for U.S. infrastructure systems are low. Last fall the organization gave road and transit systems a D, bridges a C+, and levees a D-.

According to The White House Blog funding for infrastructure impacts more than 112,000 active projects to pave roads and build bridges, and about 5,600 projects to improve the country’s transit systems. This doesn’t include almost 700,000 jobs supported by these projects.

The White House plans several infrastructure-themed events, which began with the release of a report on Monday that lays out its argument for infrastructure investment and the ensuing funding crisis if Congress fails to act.

While construction is underway to replace the 58-year-old Tappan Zee Bridge, a $3.9 billion project recently approved for a $1.6 billion federal loan—the largest loan ever awarded under the Transportation Infrastructure and Innovation Act (TIFIA)—the administration is warning that other projects could be halted, slowed or not began in the coming months.

“We have reports that many states are already rethinking their investment plans due to the uncertainty,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told a Senate committee last week. Foxx pointed out that one-in-four bridges either needs significant repair or cannot handle current traffic, and that 65% of the nation’s roads are not adequate.

Foxx told the Senate that the administration is open to a variety of possibilities for raising new revenue to finance the Highway Trust Fund. The administration has proposed a one-time infusion of $150 billion into the fund, using revenue generated by corporate tax reform. The proposal, called the GROW AMERICA Act would provide $302 billion over four years for highways, bridges, transit, and rail systems, according to the blog.