An Interstate 5 bridge collapsed into the Skagit River on Thursday evening, according to the Washington State Patrol. Trooper Mark Francis wrote on Twitter that people and cars are in the water. Both the north bound and south bound lanes were in the water, Francis wrote.
Our Reason Foundation study, “Examining 20 Years of U.S. Highway and Bridge Performance Trends,” found Washington ranked 34th out of 50 states in terms of making progress reducing its percentage of deficient and functionally obsolete bridges from 1989 to 2008. Overall the findings on functionally obsolete and deficient bridges were:
Federal law mandates the uniform inspection of all bridges for structural and functional adequacy at least every two years. Bridges are rated “deficient” if they are deemed either “functionally obsolescent,” for instance being too narrow for current traffic, or “structurally deficient” in condition. About one-half of deficient bridges are in each group. Funds are allocated to states based on estimated costs to repair deficient bridges.
The nation has made considerable progress in reducing the backlog of deficient bridges over the past two decades. The percentage of bridges rated deficient nationwide has been reduced by about 14 percentage points, from 37.8% to 23.7%. However, the rate of reduction seems to be slowing, since in the last 10 years, the percentage of deficient bridges has been reduced by about 4.5 percentage points, or about 0.45 percentage points per year. At this rate, it would take about 52 years to exhaust the backlog of deficient bridges nationwide. Further, since most of that money is spent on structurally deficient bridges, the percentage of functionally obsolescent bridges has not reduced as much.
The progress in meeting bridge deficiencies has been quite widespread. Of the 50 states, 40 registered improvement in the percentage of deficient bridges over 20 years. They are led by Mississippi and Nebraska, reporting an improvement of 31.7 and 31.5 percentage points, respectively. Nine states, led by Colorado, cut their percentage of deficient bridges by half or better.
On the other hand, 10 widely scattered states reported a worsening percentage of deficient bridges. They are led by Hawaii and Alaska at 14.3 and 10.5 percentage point increases, respectively. Arizona reported the highest relative increase, a more than doubling of its percentage of deficient bridges, but from a very low 1989 base of just 5.4%.
Full report here (.pdf).