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For context, there were 42,391 structurally deficient bridges in 2023.[0] 16 of the worst are in LA county and several see 300k trips daily, including one carr

For context, there were 42,391 structurally deficient bridges in 2023.[0] 16 of the worst are in LA county and several see 300k trips daily, including one carrying the 405.[1] 0. PDF https://artbabridgereport.org/reports/2023-ARTBA-Bridge-Report.pdf https://artbabridgereport.org/reports/2023-ARTBA-Bridge-Repo... 1. https://artbabridgereport.org/state/ranking/top-bridges https://artbabridgereport.org/state/ranking/top-bridges EDIT: States with the least % of SD bridges: AZ, NV, TX, DE, and UT. WV and IA have the most at almost 20% SD bridges respectively. (1 in 5!) EDIT2: Raw data https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/nbi/ascii.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/nbi/ascii.cfm

francisofascii 2y ago
It should be mentioned that structurally deficient does not mean unsafe.
- greggsy 2y ago
  After reading the measument rules, it is… complicated. From what I can gather, it seem that if any of the components (deck, culverts, sub/superstructure, waterways, etc) receive a ‘poor’ rating, the whole structure is marked as structurally deficient. It also factors in things like the current and expected traffic patterns and mainability. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/01/18/2017-00550/national-performance-management-measures-assessing-pavement-condition-for-the-national-highway https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/01/18/2017-00...
  - icegreentea2 2y ago
    Yes, but as illustrated by the original article/video, bridges are designed as a total system. One of the major causes of the Fern Hollow Bridge collapse was certainly the deficient drainage caused by blocked drains. Bridges (and buildings) are designed as systems. Water management is one of the biggest headaches in civil engineering - poor performance of any subsystem with a water management role is a legitimate cause for concern.
- michaelt 2y ago
  So the industry's rating system maps this bridge - totally fucked, key structural members rusted away entirely, others with large, clearly visible holes right through important points, weakened to the point it ended up falling down - to "structurally deficient" and then maps "structurally deficient" to "not necessarily unsafe" ? Kinda makes me think George Carlin was on to something with his hate of soft, euphemistic language.
  - rcxdude 2y ago
    That's one of the points in the video: the paperwork tends to obscure the state of the system to decision makers. It's easy for the bridge inspectors (or even a random member of the public) to see that it needs to be closed down and repaired, but it's not what the decision-makers see: they see a 100-page report with a long list of action items, many of which are not actually incredibly urgent, much like every other bridge they get inspected. It makes it difficult to actually get a good sense of where the bigger problems are. (of course it should actually be the case that they are on top of everything that is highlighted in the inspections, but that's expensive and it seems like no-one wants to pay for it)
    - michaelt 2y ago
      That's related, but it's not my point. Saying "decision-makers miss details in 100-page reports" makes it sound like the report is merely too thorough, and the inspectors did too good a job. My point is the report's summary could have said "This bridge will fall down within 3 years" instead of obscuring the with vague, watered-down jargon like "structurally deficient"
      - rcxdude 2y ago
        The problem is the inspectors aren't even in a position to make a judgement call like that: they're given 100 pages of boxes to fill in and they have to color inside those lines. It's a systemic issue of how the jobs are split up and the communication works between them. (see the fact that the reviews did indeed trigger some work to be done that would actually make that judgement call... by an engineering firm that never actually saw the bridge and in part for that reason screwed up the call).
naikrovek 2y ago
Thank you for this. This is neat data. I'm not sure about anyone else, but I'm pretty sure our bridges should be something considered important enough to keep maintained. :( > 36 percent of all U.S. bridges (over 222,000 spans) require major repair work or replacement. Placed end‐to‐end, these structures span over 6,100 miles – and would take over 110 hours to cross at an average speed of 55‐miles‐per‐hour. That's a lot of bridge.
greggsy 2y ago
Those states also have some of the fewest bridges, with the exception of Texas, which has the most of all states, and double the second place state (Ohio). That said, Ohio is 41 times smaller… So many ways to dice this information and I don’t even live in the US. https://www.statista.com/statistics/190386/number-of-road-bridges-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/190386/number-of-road-br...
- justin66 2y ago
  > That said, Ohio is 41 times smaller… ?
- bluish29 2y ago
  Texas is about 6 times bigger than Ohio. Texas is approximately 678,052 sq km, while Ohio is approximately 106,056 sq km. The population of Texas is around 25.1 million people compared to 11.5 million in Ohio, a difference of 13.6 million people. That means about 2 times population wise. I don't know by which size metric it is that ohio is 41 times smaller than texas?
  - jon_richards 2y ago
    Also texas has 683,533 lane miles of road vs ohio's 262,492 and a GDP of $2,563,508m vs ohio's $872,748m. Seems like they aren't putting that land mass to good use.
    - jldugger 2y ago
      Annual Rainfall per square inch seems like a relevant factor though.
      - jon_richards 2y ago
        Texas averages 36 inches of rain and 2 inches of snow each year. Ohio gets 40 inches of rain and 28 inches of snow.
jibe 2y ago
More context: About ARTBA The Washington, D.C.-based American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) is a non-partisan federation whose primary goal is to aggressively grow and protect transportation infrastructure investment
ourmandave 2y ago
I was going to say they were sounding the alarm about bridges nation wide years and years ago. They finally passed an infrastructure bill which hopefully includes fixing 'em. I know they've been replacing a lot on I-80 in IA.
bombcar 2y ago
This is actually part of the PROBLEM - with so many bridges on the "worst possible category" it becomes a bridge who cried wolf scenario. There is no way to highlight "yeah this one is going to fall down tomorrow" if the worst you can do is mark it "this bridge bad like 42k others". You need some form of a "stop ship" where inspectors get some number of "no way, close this entirely" that they can use without repercussions or something.
- djbusby 2y ago
  Deficiency Rating + Load Volume. Address the worst bug affecting the most users first?
- joncp 2y ago
  They sort of do have that power. They have the ability to lower the max vehicle weight and eventually it gets lowered to where no real traffic can go over it. Grady talked about it in the video.
- sandworm101 2y ago
  There is a catch-22 for such a judgement call. As bridges generally weigh far more than the traffic they carry, there isn't much room between a bridge that is too dangerous for traffic and one that is too dangerous for anything, including repair work.
- eauxnguyen 2y ago
  There's a road near me that's been replaced by a large 4 lane state route. There's almost no reason to drive it as there are no houses or farm access. The bridge is being completely replaced. The road is closed during construction, and I think the only people impacted by it are the recreational bikers. A boondoggle while other bridges around the country are in dangerous disrepair. I wish we knew there was a sensible prioritization that was published for review by we the taxpayers.
  - erikaww 2y ago
    Yes! I want a cost benefit analysis and to ask every stakeholder imaginable for any sort of road repair or expansion. The fact that not every repair or expansion has a single improvement for non car users is pitiful. We need to hold road infrastructure to the same consideration as we do transit and rail. If we didn’t give it unlimited funding, then it would already be doing this. We are wasting trillions and losing so much economic growth by doubling down on a bad investment year after year for decades. Imagine if this money was put into education or healthcare or transit. We’d actually have a net benefit!
bsder 2y ago
Managing structurally deficient bridges is more problematic in places with winter or at least more varied weather (like Pennsylvania). Just like this bridge, the big problem is that something happens and degradation switches from "slow but manageable" to "Oh, shit, suddenly that beam is gone and this bridge might collapse".
nemacol 2y ago
Awesome to see WV at the top of yet another list of shame. While our state representatives are issuing a tax refund because we are "running a surplus" This state is wild. I bet it will be the first to be merged with a nearby state because of poor governance.

francisofascii 2y ago

It should be mentioned that structurally deficient does not mean unsafe.

greggsy 2y ago
After reading the measument rules, it is… complicated. From what I can gather, it seem that if any of the components (deck, culverts, sub/superstructure, waterways, etc) receive a ‘poor’ rating, the whole structure is marked as structurally deficient. It also factors in things like the current and expected traffic patterns and mainability. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/01/18/2017-00550/national-performance-management-measures-assessing-pavement-condition-for-the-national-highway https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/01/18/2017-00...
- icegreentea2 2y ago
  Yes, but as illustrated by the original article/video, bridges are designed as a total system. One of the major causes of the Fern Hollow Bridge collapse was certainly the deficient drainage caused by blocked drains. Bridges (and buildings) are designed as systems. Water management is one of the biggest headaches in civil engineering - poor performance of any subsystem with a water management role is a legitimate cause for concern.
michaelt 2y ago
So the industry's rating system maps this bridge - totally fucked, key structural members rusted away entirely, others with large, clearly visible holes right through important points, weakened to the point it ended up falling down - to "structurally deficient" and then maps "structurally deficient" to "not necessarily unsafe" ? Kinda makes me think George Carlin was on to something with his hate of soft, euphemistic language.
- rcxdude 2y ago
  That's one of the points in the video: the paperwork tends to obscure the state of the system to decision makers. It's easy for the bridge inspectors (or even a random member of the public) to see that it needs to be closed down and repaired, but it's not what the decision-makers see: they see a 100-page report with a long list of action items, many of which are not actually incredibly urgent, much like every other bridge they get inspected. It makes it difficult to actually get a good sense of where the bigger problems are. (of course it should actually be the case that they are on top of everything that is highlighted in the inspections, but that's expensive and it seems like no-one wants to pay for it)
  - michaelt 2y ago
    That's related, but it's not my point. Saying "decision-makers miss details in 100-page reports" makes it sound like the report is merely too thorough, and the inspectors did too good a job. My point is the report's summary could have said "This bridge will fall down within 3 years" instead of obscuring the with vague, watered-down jargon like "structurally deficient"
    - rcxdude 2y ago
      The problem is the inspectors aren't even in a position to make a judgement call like that: they're given 100 pages of boxes to fill in and they have to color inside those lines. It's a systemic issue of how the jobs are split up and the communication works between them. (see the fact that the reviews did indeed trigger some work to be done that would actually make that judgement call... by an engineering firm that never actually saw the bridge and in part for that reason screwed up the call).

naikrovek 2y ago

Thank you for this. This is neat data. I'm not sure about anyone else, but I'm pretty sure our bridges should be something considered important enough to keep maintained. :( > 36 percent of all U.S. bridges (over 222,000 spans) require major repair work or replacement. Placed end‐to‐end, these structures span over 6,100 miles – and would take over 110 hours to cross at an average speed of 55‐miles‐per‐hour. That's a lot of bridge.

greggsy 2y ago

Those states also have some of the fewest bridges, with the exception of Texas, which has the most of all states, and double the second place state (Ohio). That said, Ohio is 41 times smaller… So many ways to dice this information and I don’t even live in the US. https://www.statista.com/statistics/190386/number-of-road-bridges-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/190386/number-of-road-br...

justin66 2y ago
> That said, Ohio is 41 times smaller… ?
bluish29 2y ago
Texas is about 6 times bigger than Ohio. Texas is approximately 678,052 sq km, while Ohio is approximately 106,056 sq km. The population of Texas is around 25.1 million people compared to 11.5 million in Ohio, a difference of 13.6 million people. That means about 2 times population wise. I don't know by which size metric it is that ohio is 41 times smaller than texas?
- jon_richards 2y ago
  Also texas has 683,533 lane miles of road vs ohio's 262,492 and a GDP of $2,563,508m vs ohio's $872,748m. Seems like they aren't putting that land mass to good use.
  - jldugger 2y ago
    Annual Rainfall per square inch seems like a relevant factor though.
    - jon_richards 2y ago
      Texas averages 36 inches of rain and 2 inches of snow each year. Ohio gets 40 inches of rain and 28 inches of snow.

jibe 2y ago

More context: About ARTBA The Washington, D.C.-based American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) is a non-partisan federation whose primary goal is to aggressively grow and protect transportation infrastructure investment

ourmandave 2y ago

I was going to say they were sounding the alarm about bridges nation wide years and years ago. They finally passed an infrastructure bill which hopefully includes fixing 'em. I know they've been replacing a lot on I-80 in IA.

bombcar 2y ago

This is actually part of the PROBLEM - with so many bridges on the "worst possible category" it becomes a bridge who cried wolf scenario. There is no way to highlight "yeah this one is going to fall down tomorrow" if the worst you can do is mark it "this bridge bad like 42k others". You need some form of a "stop ship" where inspectors get some number of "no way, close this entirely" that they can use without repercussions or something.

djbusby 2y ago
Deficiency Rating + Load Volume. Address the worst bug affecting the most users first?
joncp 2y ago
They sort of do have that power. They have the ability to lower the max vehicle weight and eventually it gets lowered to where no real traffic can go over it. Grady talked about it in the video.
sandworm101 2y ago
There is a catch-22 for such a judgement call. As bridges generally weigh far more than the traffic they carry, there isn't much room between a bridge that is too dangerous for traffic and one that is too dangerous for anything, including repair work.
eauxnguyen 2y ago
There's a road near me that's been replaced by a large 4 lane state route. There's almost no reason to drive it as there are no houses or farm access. The bridge is being completely replaced. The road is closed during construction, and I think the only people impacted by it are the recreational bikers. A boondoggle while other bridges around the country are in dangerous disrepair. I wish we knew there was a sensible prioritization that was published for review by we the taxpayers.
- erikaww 2y ago
  Yes! I want a cost benefit analysis and to ask every stakeholder imaginable for any sort of road repair or expansion. The fact that not every repair or expansion has a single improvement for non car users is pitiful. We need to hold road infrastructure to the same consideration as we do transit and rail. If we didn’t give it unlimited funding, then it would already be doing this. We are wasting trillions and losing so much economic growth by doubling down on a bad investment year after year for decades. Imagine if this money was put into education or healthcare or transit. We’d actually have a net benefit!

bsder 2y ago

Managing structurally deficient bridges is more problematic in places with winter or at least more varied weather (like Pennsylvania). Just like this bridge, the big problem is that something happens and degradation switches from "slow but manageable" to "Oh, shit, suddenly that beam is gone and this bridge might collapse".

nemacol 2y ago

Awesome to see WV at the top of yet another list of shame. While our state representatives are issuing a tax refund because we are "running a surplus" This state is wild. I bet it will be the first to be merged with a nearby state because of poor governance.