Del. ahead of pack at keeping bridges safe

Chip Balling (center) and Bob McGonigle (right) prepare a bridge on I-95 for concrete as Keith Gemberling inspects the work. Delaware has one of the nation's lowest percentages of deficient bridges. (Buy photo) The News Journal/CARLA VARISCO

A $2.7 billion funding gap won't keep the Delaware Department of Transportation from doing bridge work, officials say. "Bridges are a priority," said Jiten Soneji, DelDOT bridge design engineer.(Buy photo) The News Journal/CARLA VARISCO

Jim Joines is glad to hear the Beech Hill Drive bridge over Pike Creek in North Star finally will undergo repairs next week.

After all, the bridge is the only way in or out of his 200-plus home development.

"The road is sinking," said Joines, who has lived in the neighborhood for five years.

The Beech Hill Drive bridge, which inspection crews have been monitoring on a weekly basis, is one of 42 structurally deficient spans in the state.

With 1,470 bridges in Delaware, odds are that every time motorists buckle up, they will cross a bridge.

And drivers can be confident they're not going to plunge into a river or onto a road below -- Delaware has one of the country's lowest percentages of deficient bridges.

And the state never has had a bridge collapse.

Still, nearly one in seven bridges more than 20 feet long is in need of repairs or upgrades totaling millions of dollars. And only $20 million is budgeted for bridge work each year.

"Almost every bridge requires some kind of work, even if it's just routine maintenance work," said Doug Finney, bridge management engineer for the state's transportation department. "That's why $20 million is never enough."

According to the most recent figures from the Federal Highway Administration's National Bridge Inventory, 15 percent of Delaware's federally classified bridges were considered deficient as of December. The National Bridge Inventory regulates bridges more than 20 feet long. There are 849 such bridges in Delaware, of which 130 were considered deficient.

Delaware's bridges are in better shape than its neighbors' -- 43 percent were deficient in Pennsylvania, 36 percent in New Jersey, and 28 percent in Maryland. Nationwide, 26 percent of the country's bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, according to TRIP, a national nonprofit transportation research group.

Shorter bridges also need work

The number of federally classified Delaware bridges doesn't include the 621 shorter than 20 feet -- many of them pipe culverts -- that the transportation department also must oversee.

When those small bridges are counted, Delaware's deficiency rate decreases to 13.6 percent.

But because of the amount of money budgeted for bridge work each year, some bridges that are deficient don't automatically qualify for repairs.

Mike Williams, transportation department spokesman, said the department keeps a list of 20 to 30 bridges that could use work.

"We keep adding to it and taking away," he said.

Despite the projected $2.7 billion funding gap for road projects, there never will come a point when a bridge would have to be closed because there was a lack of funds to fix it, said Jiten Soneji, bridge design engineer for the Delaware Department of Transportation.

"Bridges are a priority," he said. "We'd find money to get it fixed. We can hold up other projects if necessary."

Many kinds of bridges

Most bridges in Delaware are constructed of steel, concrete or timber.

They range from short spans like the 14.5-foot Wiggins Mill Road bridge in Middletown to the 1,664-foot bridge on Del. 54, a concrete structure that carries about 7,028 cars a day over the tidal ponds of Fenwick Island.

The I-95 overpasses carry more than 38,000 cars a day. The state transportation department also maintains 11 pedestrian bridges.

All bridges are inspected using federal standards, Finney said. They are evaluated on a scale of 0-9, with 0 meaning the bridge is closed, and 9 meaning it is brand new, Finney said. A 5 is a satisfactory rating, but a 4 or lower is considered deficient.

Finney has three two-person teams and one consultant inspecting bridges on a daily basis. Each year, about 600 state bridges are evaluated, he said.

Using low-tech tools like bucket trucks, hip waders and hammers, inspectors are looking for general deterioration, cracks in the concrete or corrosion of steel.

All inspectors must undergo two weeks of training to be federally certified, Finney said. They then must take a three-day refresher course every five years.

When repairs are ordered

Just because a bridge receives a poor score during an inspection does not mean it automatically will be prioritized for repair, Williams said.

"The location of the bridge plays a large part," he said.

For example, if a bridge in Sussex County is rated a 4, but only has 200 cars a day cross it, it might be passed over for repairs for a bridge in New Castle County that received a 6, but has 60,000 cars cross it a day.

Finney cited a bridge in Harrington that was closed earlier this year. Because of the short detour around it and small daily traffic count, it is not slated for replacement until next spring.

Once a bridge is rated as deficient, it is inspected more often. Since June, when the Beech Hill Drive bridge first scored a 4, inspection crews starting evaluating it weekly, Soneji said.

Repair work is scheduled to start Monday, and construction should last about two weeks.

Deanne Lodge, who has lived in Beech Hill for more than six years, said the construction has been a long time coming.

"A few years ago, when a hurricane came though, the bridge was totally flooded, you could see the current moving across the road," she said. "There was a lot of erosion."

And while she never feared for her safety crossing the bridge, she said, she's pleased to see construction begin.