Throughout this year’s legislative session — and six months of study committees before that — we heard about the need for increased transportation funding to address our crumbling infrastructure of roads and bridges. Bridges generally took a backseat to highway congestion in that conversation. Bridges get about $125 million, from various state and federal sources, according to Meg Pirkle, chief engineer of the Georgia Department of Transportation. That’s not all that much when you consider the overall GDOT budget is more than $2 billion.
Still, bridges capture the imagination: if a big road buckles or cracks, almost nobody hears about it. If a major bridge fails, like the one in Minneapolis over the Mississippi River in 2007, it makes for headlines.
Recently, I spoke with Pirkle and Ben Rabun, the state bridge engineer, about the overall condition of Georgia’s bridges and the extra attention they will be getting with increased revenues, now that House Bill 170 has become law. It’s expected to provide about an additional $1 billion a year to maintain infrastructure.
The definition of what constitutes a bridge comes from the federal government. “Basically, it’s a structure that’s greater than 20 feet,” Rabun says. “They can be what we traditionally think of as a bridge, or it could be a culvert, which are more drainage structures, 20 feet or greater.” State bridges also include what we commonly refer to as highway overpasses.
According to Rabun, there are 6,529 “bridges” on the state system; another 8,000-plus are locally owned. Many are in disrepair, falling into categories the state calls “structurally deficient” or “functionally obsolete.” Neither label is intended to sound so ominous.
Structurally deficient bridges, like the one on State Road 26 over the Ocmulgee River, are “not really dangerous,” Rabun says. As it turns out, that’s just another federal term, to determine what kind of funding a structure is eligible for.
“Functionally obsolete” sounds worse, but could apply to a bridge that simply does not meet current standards. “It may have been designed to carry trucks that were lighter than what they are today,” Rabun says. “It may not have the necessary shoulders. It just doesn’t meet the current code. ‘Structurally deficient’ means that there are some items that are deteriorated or show some level of wear, and they need to be addressed.”
Curently, 79 bridges on the state system are structurally deficient. Approximately 900 bridges are 70 years old or beyond. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that they are in bad shape,” Rabun says.” They’re just getting old. So it’s time to start making some plans, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Another 84 bridges fall into the “posted” classification, those structures that cannot support the state’s legal limits on trucks; a posted bridge is one that shouldn’t be handling loads weighing over a certain limit. As you might imagine, as technology and manufacturing improves, weight standards for trucks and new bridges have increased over the last 70 years. Rabun says there are 1,800 bridges that “we have to route around,” resulting in increased mileage for truckers, and increased wear on a longer portion of the highway system. All bridges are inspected every two years.
GDOT’s new goal is to replace 88 bridges a year. The “structurally deficient” SR 26 bridge over the Ocmulgee River — two spans, each 1,168 feet long — is on that replacement list (cost $13 million), as is the one on SR 43 at the Little River ($11.7 million) and the one on SR 120 at Beach Creek, east of Tallapoosa ($4.8 million).
Last year, GDOT replaced only 60 bridges, Deputy Commissioner Todd Long said at a recent meeting of the Georgia Society of Professional Engineers. Long said 1,622 state bridges need to be replaced over the next 20 years, according to the Macon Telegraph, which would cost the state about $322 million per year.
“We’re just starting to look at a 10-year plan for the legislature,” Pirkle says. “How we’re going to be spending the additional funds from the Transportation Funding Act. Since a big part of that push for the money was we need to do better maintenance and keeping up with what we need to do for bridges as well as pavement.. We have to get the projects ready, so there will be a little ramp-up for bridges.”
The bridge statistics underscore the importance of the additional $900 million to $1 billion that increased taxes and fees will provide under the Transportation Funding Act. And, to be sure, even the engineers at GDOT felt the drama as elected officials voted up or down on the bill.
When the bill passed, there was within GDOT a feeling of “great, great” relief,” Pirkle says. “It’s a huge amount of money. It’s monumental. It’s a huge vote of confidence that they’re trusting us with this. They see the importance of our system. And we’re really excited to get down to work. This is the first year where we’re not just cutting, cutting, cutting. And you can actually say, ‘Wow, we can get some stuff done looking at the next 4-5 years ahead’.”
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