1,054 of State’s Bridges Need Repair

Work is finishing up on the County Highway H bridge rehabilitation in Phillips, Wisconsin. Price County Highway Commissioner Don Grande says delays pushed back the project by eight years. Photo by Rich Kremer/WPR.

Wisconsin has 14,275 bridges. Of those, 1,054 — or 7.4 percent — have been deemed structurally deficient in a new report.

According to the report issued by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, the state has identified necessary repairs on 1,955 bridges in Wisconsin at an estimated cost of $1.4 billion.

Wisconsin bridges are inspected at least once every two years, said Bill Oliva, chief of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation‘s Structural Development Section.

“Drivers do not need to be concerned about safety in that we have a very robust inspection program to identify those bridges that have a condition issue,” he said, adding that overall Wisconsin’s bridges are “above average.”

Still, the report indicated structurally deficient bridges need urgent repair. It also said most of the bridges that were identified as structurally deficient were built more than 60 years ago.

The report shows thousands of drivers cross a deficient bridge every day, but did indicate that the number of unsound bridges in the state has fallen over the last four years.

With five bridges listed in the report, Milwaukee County has the most structurally deficient bridges in the state; two on Interstate-43, two on Interstate-41, and one on County Highway PP.

Listen to the WPR report here.

Report: More Than 1K Wisconsin Bridges In Need Of Repair was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.