A newly released list of America’s structurally deficient bridges shows that nine of the ten most-traveled structurally deficient bridges in the nation are in Southern California.
The new report comes from the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA), based on an analysis of data from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s 2016 National Bridge Inventory. The report identified almost 56,000 structurally deficient bridges nationally.
On the National Bridge Inventory, California ranked 14th in the nation based on total number of structurally deficient bridges. A bridge is classified as structurally deficient if one or more of the key bridge elements, such as the deck, superstructure or substructure, is in “poor” or worse condition.
The ARTBA report found that Southern California tops the list of the nation’s most-traveled structurally deficient bridges. Los Angeles County is home to seven of the ten most-traveled structurally deficient bridges in the country. No. 1 on the list is the Interstate 110 bridge over Los Angeles County’s Dominguez Channel, which vehicles cross 274,000 times a day. The remaining six are along the 110 and 101 freeways in Los Angeles County. Orange County is also home to two of the bridges in this top ten category, one on State Route 55 at Santiago Creek and the other on State Route 22 at Harbor Boulevard.
The U.S. highway system “is outdated, overused, underfunded and in desperate need of modernization,” Alison Premo Black, the association’s chief economist, said in a statement.
Experts predict it would cost approximately $700 billion to make all the necessary repairs and upgrades to the bridges on the list. California has identified 4,088 bridges that are in need of repair at an estimated cost of $13 billion.
Source: CBS LA
