Texas Bridges: 193 Are Structurally Deficient, Highest Number In Nation

[UPDATE: The Statesman has an article in which TxDOT officials are quoted as saying four percent of the state's bridges are deficient. This statistic is a bit different than the study listed below, in part because the TxDOT officials are talking about all bridges and not just FHWA classified bridges. Even so, it totally omits the fact that we have more unsafe bridges than any other state. Also, the AAS has a list of "structurally unsafe" bridges.]

Following yesterday’s awful bridge collapse in Minneapolis, many in Texas were left wondering, “are our bridges safe?”

The answer, it turns out, is, “no.” Texas has more structurally deficient bridges than any state in the nation, according to a report of the U.S. Department of Transporation’s Office of Inspector General released last year. [Report here, .pdf]

In light of yesterday’s bridge collapse, to note that Texas has 193 bridges classified as “structurally deficient”—the highest number in the nation. From the report:

Texas provides an example of the limitations of FHWA’s compliance reviews. Texas has 48,492 bridges on the 2003 Bridge Inventory, by far the largest number of all states, but has only one FHWA bridge engineer and one assistant engineer.

Of the 15,072 National Highway System bridges in Texas, 193 are structurally deficient. As part of the annual compliance review, the FHWA Texas Division performs approximately eight follow-up reviews of bridge documents each year, and visits about six bridges per review (for a total of only 48 of the 48,492 bridges in the state) to ensure that inspections performed by the Texas Department of Transportation are done in accordance with Inspection Standards.

That’s truly amazing. Keep in mind, too, that these aren’t little bridges over tiny creeks on county roads in rural counties, either. FHWA inventoried bridges are typically major bridges. The audit does not, however, state which bridges made up the 193 “structurally deficient” ones in Texas.

If you are wondering about those two FHWA bridge engineers and why they are unable to do more, check this from the report:

For example, the Corps’ review found serious problems with bridge maintenance and posting in Massachusetts, but FHWA never suspended Federal aid to that state, even after the Massachusetts State Auditor found severe deficiencies in managing its structurally deficient bridges. In addition, our November 19, 2004, report on FHWA’s process for “Managing Risk in the Federal-Aid Highway Program,” (Report Number MH-2005-012) found that the risk assessment conducted by the Texas Division Office had evaluated only 4 of the 18 components of the bridge program. Our audit found that the Texas Division’s two bridge engineers had limited time for bridge oversight and the Division’s annual compliance review did not evaluate bridge data to focus on compliance with inspection and maximum posting requirements.

We found time constraints restricted bridge engineers’ reviews to only a small percentage of the total number of bridges in the state. For example, the FHWA bridge engineer in Texas informed us that he spent only about 15 percent of his time on oversight of the bridge inspection program. The majority of his time was spent providing technical assistance, construction inspection, final planning, primary planning, technical reviews, and committee meetings. Accordingly, little
time was available to review bridge documents, analyze inspection data, and make field visits to verify state compliance with Inspection Standards. In addition, until October 2005, he spent up to 30 percent of his time on work not associated with bridges, specifically, performing hazardous material tank inspections for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

Additionally, FHWA’s annual compliance review process in the Texas Division office relied on state information that it did not independently verify. FHWA did not base its annual compliance reviews on analyses of bridge data that focused on
the most serious bridge deficiencies, particularly those that remained uncorrected after multiple inspections or that posed a potential threat to public safety.

The bridges selected for FHWA’s annual compliance reviews are not necessarily structurally deficient, and not all of them are on the National Highway System.
For example, FHWA’s Texas bridge engineer told us that he reviewed monthly reports from the state that summarize the status of bridge inspections for each of the 25 Texas Department of Transportation districts, but did not necessarily select bridges for review based on whether they had been identified as deficient. The bridge engineer could not provide a list of the specific bridges that he had inspected, or what aspects of the bridges were inspected.

And, in case you were wanting some examples of other problems with the program, here are some:

Among the Texas bridges that the Corps’ engineers reviewed, they found an unposted bridge with a load rating of 20 tons. According to both state and Federal criteria, the bridge should have been posted because of the low load rating and the poor physical condition of the bridge. Further, according to state criteria, the inspection frequency should have been 12 months rather than the 24 months recorded in the state inventory data.[...]

The undated load rating calculations for an 18-span concrete bridge in Texas produced a maximum weight limit of 99 tons. This rating was not supported by the state’s inventory data of 2003, which reported a maximum load rating of 25 tons with the same physical conditions that were reported in the 2001 Bridge Inventory. In contrast, the Bridge Inventory reported a maximum weight limit of 44 tons. There is no proof that the structural conditions or functional requirements changed enough to support three different load rating calculation results within a 2-year period.

And, Texas has been put on notice before (more than a decade ago) about unsafe bridges:

A 1992 FHWA directive ordered Divisions to require states to comply with the inspection and maximum weight posting requirements of the Inspection Standards and suspend Federal aid to states that did not comply with the requirements. We found that more than a decade later, FHWA Divisions in Massachusetts and Texas still needed to take more aggressive action to identify and address bridge inspection and posting deficiencies in their states.

Utterly amazing.

Tweet This Post   Ping This Post

Bookmark It