70°
FAIRFIELD COUNTY, Conn. Most of Connecticut's bridges are at least 50 years old some were built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and will need to be upgraded or replaced over the next decade or two, says the state Department of Transportation.
And a new national reported released Wednesday ranks Fairfield County's elevated spans among the most deficient in the nation. The cost to replace and fix the county's thousands of bridges over the next 20 years will be in the billions, state officials said.
A Washington, D.C., transportation advocacy group ranked the county as having the fourth-highest number of motorists using "structurally deficient" bridges in a survey of metropolitan areas with populations of 1 million or fewer.
"The Fix We're In For: The State of Our Nation's Busiest Bridges" says Fairfield County averages 1.38 million drivers daily who use one of 107 spans or 12.9 percent in the Stamford/Norwalk/Bridgeport area that the Federal Highway Administration categorizes as "structurally deficient." That means a county driver crosses a structurally deficient bridge every 16 seconds, according to the report.
"In New England states like Connecticut, we have older infrastructure than in other regions, and we have to be extremely vigilant in keeping up with inspections, part-replacements and ultimately, entire decks and spans must be replaced," said Kevin Nursick, a spokesman for the transportation department.
The "structurally deficient" designation doesn't mean bridges are unsafe for drivers, he said, but that repairs are required. He said the state spends $160 million annually on bridge work. "We would never allow the public to travel on bridges that are not safe."
But over the next five years, Connecticut will need about $2.4 billion to complete maintenance, preservation and repair projects required to maintain transportation infrastructure, which includes highways and bridges built in the 1950s and 1960s, according to a January report submitted to the governor by a transition team committee.
"Bridge work is very expensive, about 10 times the cost of regular roadwork, so we are going to need continuing support and, hopefully higher funding levels from the federal government to maintain our aging infrastructure," Nursick said.
Major projects are already under way to replace bridges on and near Interstate 95, the Merritt Parkway and local roads. Several will be completed next summer, Nursick said. Those include a $166.5 million project along the Merritt to replace and upgrade historic bridges above the parkway and over the Mill River in the Fairfield area as well as smaller projects, such as the $2 million replacement of an I-95 ramp to Route 7 in Norwalk.
Even work on smaller bridges can be a major undertaking. Recently, workers put the final touches on a nearly 18-month project to replace two 1929 bridges with a modern structure that goes over the Mill River on Mill Plain Road in Fairfield. The new $2.4 million bridge was funded by federal and state grants.
"The original bridges were never meant to handle the tons of traffic that now go over the span," said one of the project supervisors, who declined to give his name.
President Barack Obama made bridge repairs a national issue last month with his call on Congress to make replacing and upgrading bridges and infrastructure part of his $447 billion jobs plan.
"For decades we have woefully neglected our transportation infrastructure, and we are now forced to face the grim reality that our roads and bridges are badly in need of repair," said Gov. Dannel Malloy. "Most importantly, these projects represent an investment in the state, in our work force and in the safety of all of Connecticut's travelers."
Bridge safety has been a major concern in Connecticut ever since the infamous Mianus River Bridge collapse in Greenwich nearly 29 years ago. When the northbound I-95 bridge span collapsed in the early morning of June 28, 1983, three people plunged to their deaths and three more suffered serious injuries.
The faulty design and lack of up-to-date inspections exposed many of the hidden dangers of the bridge. That the collapse occurred in one of the most affluent towns in the country dramatized the urgent need to upgrade and replace many of the country's aging and failing bridges, and to make more frequent inspections.
Nursick said that after Mianus, technology was improved and backup safety systems were put in place that prevent bridge spans from falling even if a key component fails.
"The Mianus River Bridge collapse was one of those cataclysmic events that forever changed the way we make bridges and the way we inspect them," he said. "It's fair to say it impacted not only our state but the entire country and industry."
Click here to follow Daily Voice Stamford and receive free news updates.
