Feds let states delay inspections of bad bridges

Bill Dedman Investigative reporter • Profile • E-mail

Bridge safety leaped to the top of the agenda of federal highway administrator J. Richard Capka in August, when 13 people died in the collapse of a bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis.

But even before the disaster, it would have been a personal concern if Capka had examined the bridges on the shortest drive from his home in suburban Virginia to his office in Washington, D.C. On the day the Minneapolis bridge fell, three of those bridges were overdue for their safety inspections.

The inattention to the bridges on the highway administrator's commute is not unique, according to an msnbc.com analysis of newly released records from the National Bridge Inventory. The records, which include inspections through 2006, show several failures in federal oversight of the system designed to ensure the safety of travelers crossing the nation's bridges:

• The Federal Highway Administration has allowed states to take advantage of a loophole in federal regulations, delaying bridge inspections to every four years instead of the two years normally required. While most states don't use this loophole, calling it unsafe, others drive a truck through it: Nationally, 30,000 bridges are listed on the delayed-inspection schedules, including 10,000 in Illinois alone and more than 3,000 on interstate highways.
• Bridges in poor condition have been allowed on these delayed timetables in violation of federal guidelines. Although federal and state officials are bound by law to closely monitor the schedules, their own records show thousands of bridges on delayed-inspection schedules — despite being too decayed, too long or too heavily traveled to qualify.
• "Fracture-critical" bridges like the Minneapolis bridge, which could collapse if one part fails, have remained on delayed-inspection schedules in violation of federal regulations. The records show 622 of these vulnerable bridges on four-year timetables.
• Even after the deadly collapse in Minneapolis, the haphazard system of inspections continued, with federal authorities choosing not to require re-inspection of more than  18,000 fracture-critical bridges. In a survey of every state by msnbc.com, only six states and the District of Columbia said they began to recheck all their fracture-critical bridges. The rest checked only the few hundred bridges of the particular deck-truss design used in Minneapolis.
• Federal agencies that own bridges have some of the worst records for on-time inspections. Nearly 3,000 bridges owned by U.S. government agencies went more than two years between checkups.

Improvements follow calamity
Historically, improvements in bridge inspection have followed bridge failures.

U.S. Department of Transportation The 46 deaths at the Silver Bridge in 1967 in Point Pleasant, W.Va., led to a national standard for bridge inspection.

On Dec. 15, 1967, 46 people died when the Silver Bridge collapsed into the Ohio River at Point Pleasant, W.Va. After this calamity, Congress ordered the U.S. Department of Transportation to establish a regime for bridge inspection. The National Bridge Inspection Standards went into effect in 1971 but were limited to bridges on the federal highway system. In 1980, the inspection rules were extended to all public bridges more than 20 feet long.

On June 28, 1983, three people died in the collapse of the Mianus River Bridge on the Connecticut Turnpike (Interstate 95) in Greenwich. The death toll could have been higher had the bridge not fallen in the middle of the night. The collapse focused attention on fracture-critical bridges. The U.S. has more than 18,000 such bridges, built from 1832 through 2007. In response, inspection standards were established for fracture-critical bridges, and special inspections began in 1988.

In April 5, 1987, 10 people died when the Schoharie Creek Bridge on the New York State Thruway was washed away. Federal investigators blamed erosion caused by a poor design, but said that a contributing factor was inadequate oversight of inspections by state and federal officials. Afterward, the highway administration set standards for underwater inspection of bridge piers and abutments for erosion, or "scour."

The collapse in Minneapolis on Aug. 1, 2007, of the I-35W bridge, which injured more than 100 people in addition to causing 13 deaths, has refocused attention on bridge safety.

Although legislation is pending in Congress to increase funding to fix the worst bridges, and to require the Federal Highway Administration to monitor state inspection programs more closely, that legislation does not address several problems identified by msnbc.com in the national bridge records.

A loophole expands
In 1988, the Federal Highway Administration provided a loophole in the National Bridge Inspection Standards, allowing states to seek permission to put certain bridges on inspection schedules as long as 48 months, twice the usual 24-month standard.

BY THE NUMBERS       Where bridges wait? While most states aim to inspect every bridge every two years, a few states use a loophole in the federal guidelines to place many bridges on slower schedules for re-inspection. Here are details from an msnbc.com analysis of bridge inspection records reported by the states. The latest National Bridge Inventory includes inspections performed through 2006. State Bridges Bridges on inspection schedules longer than 24 months Percent on long schedules Alabama 15,484 3 0.0% Alaska 988 0 0.0% Arizona 6,937 3,271 47.2% Arkansas 12,322 471 3.8% California 23,658 3,610 15.3% Colorado 8,022 1,183 14.7% Connecticut 3,982 711 17.9% D.C. 208 0 0.0% Delaware 841 0 0.0% Florida 11,477 0 0.0% Georgia 14,303 0 0.0% Hawaii 1,089 0 0.0% Idaho 3,597 0 0.0% Illinois 25,746 10,839 42.1% Indiana 18,266 0 0.0% Iowa 24,092 0 0.0% Kansas 25,258 4 0.0% Kentucky 13,509 N/A N/A Louisiana 12,683 0 0.0% Maine 2,323 0 0.0% Maryland 4,939 3 0.0% Massachusetts 4,924 0 0.0% Michigan 10,601 0 0.0% Minnesota 13,115 0 0.0% Mississippi 16,384 70 0.4% Missouri 23,694 0 0.0% Montana 4,318 832 19.3% Nebraska 15,266 0 0.0% Nevada 1,636 0 0.0% New Hampshire 2,417 0 0.0% New Jersey 6,190 1 0.0% New Mexico 3,647 1,298 35.6% New York 17,193 0 0.0% North Carolina 17,723 0 0.0% North Dakota 4,349 472 10.9% Ohio 27,570 0 0.0% Oklahoma 22,759 329 1.4% Oregon 6,623 7 0.1% Pennsylvania 21,876 7 0.0% Rhode Island 723 0 0.0% South Carolina 9,150 0 0.0% South Dakota 5,807 688 11.8% Tennessee 19,568 0 0.0% Texas 49,733 4,337 8.7% Utah 2,704 0 0.0% Vermont 2,657 0 0.0% Virginia 12,912 2 0.0% Washington 7,032 461 6.6% West Virginia 6,888 1,671 24.3% Wisconsin 13,677 0 0.0% Wyoming 2,766 0 0.0% Federal bridges 8,332 280 3.4% Total 591,958 30,550 5.2% Notes: Kentucky did not submit its records. Bridges owned by federal agencies are not included in state figures. Source: Msnbc.com analysis of National Bridge Inventory through 2006, as reported by states in April 2007. Methodology: How msnbc.com studied bridge inspections More: Other state-by-state results

The idea, according to the federal regulations, was to delay the inspection of low-risk bridges, leaving more time and money for attending to the worst bridges.

The loophole was supposed to be tightly drawn, available only for shorter, newer, low-traffic bridges in healthy condition.

And the federal regulations require that the bridge schedules be carefully monitored, pruned after every inspection. If bridges deteriorate or traffic grows, bridges are to be moved back onto the regular schedules.

Most states have chosen not to use the loophole, keeping all bridges on a two-year schedule. Several state officials told msnbc.com that they consider use of the loophole unsafe — and not much of a time saving. Only 16 states reported more than a handful of bridges on long schedules.

"There shouldn't be any bridge in the country that is more than 24 months," said Bob Healy, deputy director of the bridges office at the Maryland State Highway Administration, which has no bridges on delayed schedules. "The cycle should never exceed 24 months."

Although the highway administration said that approximately 20,000 bridges are on longer inspection schedules, records from the bridge inventory through 2006 show 30,571 bridges on such schedules. That's one out of 20 bridges across the nation.

Illinois reported 10,839 bridges on longer inspection schedules, or 42 percent of its inventory. That has risen from 6,200 when the state got federal permission in 1995.

Arizona has 3,276 bridges, or 47 percent of its total, on longer schedules. But it limits the exemption to culverts, the concrete structures that tend to be shorter, more stable and, in case of failure, less deadly.

Connecticut highway officials made a U-turn last summer, with Gov. M. Jodi Rell putting all bridges back onto inspection schedules of two years or less.

"Several months prior to the collapse in Minnesota, Gov. Rell directed the Connecticut DOT to bring all bridges into a 24-month or shorter inspection cycle," said state transportation spokesman Kevin Nursick.

"Basically, better to err on the side of caution and inspect more frequently."

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