The nonprofit Transportation for America coalition has pulled together an online tool that lets you see state and county stats on highway bridges deemed deficient by the federal government. Here’s the North Carolina page. The Tar Heel state ranks No. 14 in the percentage of deficient bridges, 13 percent.
Rockingham County, north of Greensboro, is the worst county, with 33.6 percent of its bridges rated deficient. In the Charlotte metro region, Cabarrus is worst – No. 4 in the state – with 25 percent.
South Carolina is right there with us, ranking No. 15, also with 13 percent of its bridges deficient. The three worst states, in order: Pennsylvania (26.5 percent), Oklahoma (22 percent), Iowa (21.7 percent).
It’s hard to see how this isn’t yet another problem confronting our national and state transportation policies, where (my opinion here) disproportionate money has been spent on building new highways with little regard for the costs of future maintenance.
The group’s assessment of the roots of the problem: “Two key problems persist: while Congress has repeatedly declared bridge safety a national priority, existing federal programs don’t ensure that aging bridges actually get fixed; and the current level of investment is nowhere near what is needed to keep up with our rapidly growing backlog of aging bridges. Did you know that states can transfer up to half of their federal money dedicated to bridge repair to other projects, no questions asked?”
Here’s a link to the page describing what data was used.
And for the record, the NCDOT is working on rebuilding that Yadkin River bridge.
Photo credit: Yadkin River bridge, in 2007 Observer file photo