Automotive Journal

Is the federal government determined to have another bridge disaster like what happened in Minneapolis earlier this year? That would seem to be the case. MSNBC explains in a detailed article that the government has allowed states to delay inspections even on the more riskier bridges. Here are some bullet points from the article.

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 five 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.

MSNBC also found that there are 1,630 bridges in the U.S. to violate a list of inspection criteria. They also uncovered that there are 622 fracture-critical bridges in the National Bridge Inventory that are on schedules for delayed inspection. On an ironic note MSNBC also found some bridges in need of inspection along federal highway administrator J. Richard Capka's route to and from work.

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