State making progress on bridge upkeep with increased funding

The crack on a steel girder on the underside of the westbound Interstate 70 bridge over the Patapsco River was so small that it wouldn't catch the eye of most.

But within a half-hour of a bridge cleaning-and-painting contractor spotting it, a structural engineer with the State Highway Administration was on scene, and the bridge was closed to traffic.

About 100,000 vehicles travel over the bridge daily, and all were detoured for two days earlier this month as repairs were made. SHA Administrator Melinda Peters said her agency is "very conservative" when it comes to assessing bridge safety, and was "erring on the side of caution."

The decision to immediately put contractors to work shoring up the bridge was also in line with the agency's evolving modus operandi, officials said, of using newly available resources to bring an ever-increasing number of bridges into good condition before small issues become major problems.

"We've really been able to kick that up," said Earle "Jock" Freedman, longtime director of the SHA's Office of Structures, including bridges.

Local concerns about deteriorating infrastructure have increased recently following the collapse of a large retaining wall in Charles Village and the recent closure of Interstate 495 in Wilmington after the discovery of serious damage to several bridge supports there. The brief closure of I-70, as a result, led to more questions than normal from the already concerned public, said Valerie Burnette Edgar, a SHA spokeswoman.

But in Maryland in recent years, cause for concern should actually be going down, SHA officials said, because significant progress has been made improving the condition of state-maintained bridges largely thanks to dramatic increases in annual bridge repair funding, including from the state.

"We've really been getting good funding," Freedman said. "We've gotta be looking at these bridges and finding potential [problems] rather than reacting to things that we didn't expect."

"If you don't take care of your house, you're going to have problems," said Rod Thornton, the SHA's division chief of bridge design and rehabilitation, on the agency's "preventative measures" approach.

According to SHA data, funding for "Bridge System Preservation" has jumped from $62.2 million in fiscal 2002 to $176.1 million in fiscal 2014. In the same period, the number of "structurally deficient" bridges in the state fell from 148 to 81 or about 3 percent of the 2,700 bridges the state is responsible for, Freedman said.

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State making progress on bridge upkeep with increased funding