Bridges to Trouble

Buckingham residents who used the Pineville Road bridge know firsthand what it means when a local bridge deteriorates to the point of needing to be closed.

But they are not the only ones.

Nearly 152,000 vehicles drive each day over 16 bridges in Doylestown, Buckingham and New Britain Borough that have been rated "structually deficient" according to a DoylestownPatch analysis of current data from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

Those 16 bridges - and the 17th, Pineville Road, which is closed - are just a small part of a larger picture. That picture becomes more serious each year as the nation's bridges slowly crumble, some to an unsafe point, transportation advocates say.

“Since the 2007 collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, Americans have been acutely aware of the critical need to maintain our bridges,” James Corless, director of Transportation for America, said in a recent statement.

On March 30, the advocacy group released a study "The Fix We're In For: the State of the Nation's Bridges," which examined federal data on bridges nationwide. It concluded that Pennsylvania is home to the largest share of deteriorating bridges at 26.5 percent.

The finding did not surprise PennDOT officials.

"We're well aware of our bridge challenges. It wasn't a shock," PennDOT spokesman Gene Blaum said Monday. "We're a large state with an enormously large transportation infrastructure and a rough climate. But we're still making progress, and the situation is much better now than it was a few years ago."

Out of Pennsylvania's 25,000 bridges, Blaum said 6,034 were rated structurally deficient a few years ago. The state's bridge repair program has knocked that number down to fewer than 5,300 now, he said. The Transportation for America study lists 5,906 deteriorating bridges, but Blaum said those numbers are outdated.

Bucks County is home to 198 structurally deficient bridges, Blaum said, part of a total of 550 such bridges in the five-county area of Philadelphia and its suburbs. Of the Bucks bridges, 170 are on state highways, while 28 are owned by the county or local municipalities, Blaum said.

The state launched an aggressive program to repair and reinforce or replace those bridges. Blaum said 1,600 structurally deficient bridges are under construction now, including the Pineville Road bridge.

"Bridges are a priority, and to continue to emphasize and to cut down that number of structurally deficient bridges is important," Blaum said. "Here in our region, more bridges will be coming up for construction this year - we're only in April."

Blaum noted that the rating of "structurally deficient" shouldn't unnecessarily worry drivers.

"If a bridge is rated structurally deficient, it doesn't mean the bridge is unsafe," he said. "There's something about it that needs some repair. But that doesn't mean that it is unsafe."

Inspectors typically evaluate three parts of a bridge - the deck, which carries the cars and trucks, the superstructure, which supports the deck, and the substructure, the bridge's foundation. Each element is rated 1 through 9, with 1 being worst and 9 being best. Then inspectors give the bridge an overall sufficiency rating.

Pennsylvania inspects its bridges at least once every two years, Blaum said. Inspections can be bumped up to once a year if a bridge needs closer monitoring.

The weight limits on worrisome bridges are often reduced if inspectors fear that heavier vehicles will accelerate the rate of deterioration, Blaum said.

Each day this week here at DoylestownPatch, we'll take a look at a local bridge on the state's list of structurally deficient bridges.

First up is a structure that literally connects Doylestown to the rest of Bucks County to the south, the bridge carrying Rt. 611 (the south end of Main Street) over the Rt. 202 bypass.

SOUTH MAIN STREET
•    Crosses US 202 bypass
•    Built 1973
•    National bridge ID 091001003002990 
•    6,149 cars per day (avg.) 

Ratings 
•    Deck: 6
•    Superstructure: 6
•    Substructure: 4

Overall Sufficiency Rating: 56.3

Inspections 
•    Inspection frequency: 24 months
•    Last inspection: March 2009

Source: PennDOT data and Transportation for America

To see PennDOT's complete list of bridges and their condition ratings, click here.