Civil Engineers Address The Need For A Bridge Safety Program
Read what the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) recommends for a bridge safety program to ensure an adequate and economical approach to the inspection, evaluation, maintenance, rehabilitation and replacement of our nation’s bridges.
For the continued safety of the nation’s bridges, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) advocates that a bridge safety program for both public and private bridges be established, fully funded and consistently operated to upgrade or replace deficient bridges and to properly maintain all others. This program should preserve full functionality of all bridges to support the operation of safe, reliable and efficient transportation systems, and to allow these systems to be utilized to their full capacity.
At a minimum, such programs should include:
- Regular programs of inspection and evaluation that incorporate state-of-the-art investigative and analytical techniques, especially of older bridges that were not designed and constructed to current design loading and geometric standards.
- Posting of weight and speed limits on deficient structures.
- Implementing and adequately funding regular system-wide maintenance programs that are the most cost-effective means of ensuring the safety and adequacy of existing bridges.
- Establishing a comprehensive program for prioritizing and adequately funding the replacement of functionally obsolete and structurally deficient bridges.
- Set a national goal that fewer than 15% of the nation’s bridges be classified as structurally deficient or functionally obsolete by 2010.
Continued neglect and lack of adequate maintenance will ultimately result in higher annual life-cycle costs of bridges due to shortened service life. Therefore, investment to improve the condition and functionality of the nation’s bridges will reduce the required investment in the future.
There has been some improvement in the condition and performance of the transportation infrastructure. As of 2005, 156,335 of the nation’s 595,363 bridges, or 26.3%, were structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, as compared to 34.6% of all bridges in 1992. However, despite this improvement, functionally obsolete or structurally deficient bridges on the nation’s transportation systems continue to constitute significant potential hazards, which may jeopardize the safe, reliable and efficient operation of these.
To simply maintain the current condition of these bridges will require an annual $7.3 billion investment. To eliminate all bridge deficiencies will require $9.4 billion annually for a period of 20 years. Total bridge expenditure by all levels of government for capital outlays (including system preservation and system expansion) was at $8.8 billion in 2003. Additional funding beyond that level will therefore be needed to continue to reduce the backlog of structurally deficient bridges, and prevent more bridges from becoming structurally deficient.
[This article reprinted courtesy of the American Society of Civil Engineers.]
