Pennsylvania leads the nation in troubled bridges

In a state with more decrepit bridges than any other, Philadelphia stands out: The local area has all of Pennsylvania's 10 busiest troubled spans.

And, facing a $4 billion budget deficit, Pennsylvania plans to repair 45 percent fewer structurally deficient bridges in 2011 than it did in 2010.

Bridges are the most expensive links in the country's necklace of highways, and they are soaking up more of the road-repair budgets in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and across the nation. The United States is paying the piper for the road-building boom of the Interstate Era of the 1960s and 1970s.

As states struggle to balance their budgets in a period of high unemployment, tax revolts, and rising costs, they face the expensive dilemma of how to fix bridges faster than they are wearing out. Most highway bridges were designed to last about 50 years. Nationwide, the average age of a bridge is now 42 years. In New Jersey, it is 50. In Pennsylvania, it is 53.

The politics of money and geography will figure into this year's congressional debate over a six-year national transportation-funding plan, including money for bridge repairs. The last federal funding plan expired in 2009 and has limped along with periodic short-term extensions ever since.

The current federal bridge-repair program provides $5.2 billion a year, compared with what the Federal Highway Administration estimates is a backlog of $71 billion of repair needs.

Pennsylvania continues to lead the nation in the number and percentage of structurally deficient bridges - those rated "poor" in some part of the support structure or deck.

A recent report by Transportation for America, a group that advocates for more federal transportation funding, listed Pennsylvania as worst in the nation with 26.5 percent of its bridges structurally deficient (5,906 of 22,271). New Jersey ranked 27th, slightly better than average, with 10.3 percent of its bridges structurally deficient (674 of 6,517).

Transportation officials in both states note that the federal data used in the report are from 2009, and both states say they've reduced their bad-bridge numbers since then.

In Pennsylvania, Gov. Corbett says he'd like to use some of the money from a proposed sale of the state liquor store system to bolster bridges. And he will soon name an advisory panel to come up with funding ideas, such as more toll roads and partnerships with private companies to build and pay for roads and bridges.

But in 2011, after four years of rising numbers of bridge-repair projects and three years of an "accelerated bridge repair" program, Pennsylvania will do less with less.

The state Department of Transportation plans to fix 320 structurally deficient bridges in 2011, compared with 577 in 2010, according to department projections. It plans to spend $780 million on bridges in 2011, down from $923 million in 2010.

Corbett plans to continue borrowing $200 million a year for the "accelerated bridge program" begun under his predecessor, Ed Rendell, said PennDot spokesman Rich Kirkpatrick.

In New Jersey, the Christie administration plans to spend $780 million on bridges in fiscal 2012, a 19 percent increase from the previous year.

Much of the focus for both states will be in the Philadelphia-South Jersey region, since that is where many of the most-heavily traveled deficient bridges are.

In Pennsylvania, all 10 of the busiest deficient bridges are in Philadelphia or Montgomery County. Six are on I-95 between the Betsy Ross Bridge and Port Richmond, and three are on the Blue Route (I-476) between West Conshohocken and Plymouth Meeting. The busiest is a Pennsylvania Turnpike bridge just east of the Willow Grove interchange.

The six I-95 bridges will cost about $570 million to fix, part of a larger $1.4 billion tab for repairing that stretch of I-95. Figuring out how to pay to rebuild I-95 through Southeast Pennsylvania will be one of the biggest challenges for Corbett and legislators; one recurrent proposal is to make I-95 a toll road to provide repair funds.

The three bridges on I-476 are expected to cost $51 million to fix, and all three are under construction now. The turnpike bridge will require only a minor concrete patch to one pier, expected to cost about $50,000, to remove it from the "structurally deficient" list, and that work is supposed to be complete by midsummer, according to the Turnpike Commission.

In New Jersey, the state's most-heavily traveled deficient bridge is in Camden County, on I-76 in Gloucester City, about a mile north of I-295. It's scheduled to have its deck replaced in 2014, but no cost estimate is available, said NJDot spokesman Joe Dee.

The state's 10th-busiest deficient bridge is also in Camden County, on I-295 over the White Horse Pike. That bridge is being rebuilt now as part of a $76 million reconstruction of an eight-mile stretch of I-295 between Exits 24 and 32 in Gloucester and Camden Counties.