Over One-Third of U.S. Bridges in Need of Replacement

According to the annual bridge report from the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, there are 175 million daily crossings on over 45,000 structurally deficient U.S. bridges in poor condition.

ARTBA
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The American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) has released their seventh annual analysis of the latest U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Bridge Inventory database and have found that more than one-third, or 220,000, of the nation’s 618,000 bridges need structural repair, rehabilitation work or replacement. This means there are there are 175 million daily crossings on over 45,000 structurally deficient U.S. bridges in poor condition.

Nearly 89 percent of the structurally deficient bridges had the same rating in 2019 meaning that no repairs have been made to them, however at least 3,736 bridges that were structurally deficient in 2019 were removed from that category last year. At the current rate of repair though, it would take 40 years to fix all of the nation's structurally deficient bridges.

Other Key Findings from the Report

  • More than 45,000 bridges in the United States are classified as structurally deficient (SD) and considered to be in poor or worse condition
  • The estimated cost to repair or replace the 45,000 SD bridges, based on average price data from the U.S. DOT, is $41.8 billion
  • The length of these SD bridges, about 1,080 miles, spans the distance between Las Vegas and Seattle
  • Motorists cross these compromised structures 171.5 million times every day, the data shows.
  • A SD bridge, on average, is nearly 68 years old, compared to 32 years for a bridge in good condition and 54 years for a bridge in fair condition 
  • Nearly 89 percent of the SD bridges had the same rating in 2019
  • There were 4,938 bridges newly classified as SD

You can view the whole report here

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