Here Are The Crumbling Bridges In California

CALIFORNIA – There are 1,812 structurally deficient bridges in California out of a total 25,737 bridges. Among the most heavily traveled: a freeway/expressway on the US Route 101 over Kester Avenue in Los Angeles County, which sees 289,000 crossings every single day.

The American Road and Transportation Builders Association, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, published its annual bridge report Monday. The group ranked California 28th worst in the nation for percent of structurally deficient bridges.

Here’s what they found for California:

• Total bridges: 25,737
• Structurally deficient bridges: 1,812
• Percent of bridges that are structurally deficient: 7
• Number of bridges in need of repair: 5,093
• Cost to repair those bridges: $8.8 billion

What's more, the report states that "150 of the structurally deficient bridges are on the Interstate Highway System" and "561 bridges are posted for load, which may restrict the size and weight of vehicles crossing the structure."

The overall number of bridges that needs work in California is down, though. In 2014, the number was 5,512.

According to the report, some of the top most traveled structurally deficient bridges in the Golden State are (Click here to see the full list.):

• Los Angeles County: US Route 101 over Kester Ave
• Orange County: Interstate 5 over State Route 261
• Contra Costa County: Interstate 680 over Monument Boulevard
• Solano County: Interstate 80 over Dan Wilson Creek
• San Mateo County: U.S. Highway 101 over Cordilleras Creek
• Alameda County: Interstate 580 over San Lorenzo Creek

The 2019 bridge report found there are more than 47,000 bridges rated “structurally deficient” and in urgent need of repairs. Americans cross these bridges — which were built an average of 62 years ago — 178 million times a day.

“If placed end-to-end, they would stretch nearly 1,100 miles — the distance between Chicago and Houston,” the report stated.

While that number may sound like a lot, the total number of structurally deficient bridges has fallen by about 1 percentage point since 2014 to 7.6 percent. And it would take decades to repair them all.

“At this rate, it would take over 80 years to make the significant repairs needed on these structures,” the report stated.

Some of the notable bridges deemed structurally deficient include:

• New York’s Brooklyn Bridge
• Memorial Bridge connecting Washington, D.C. with Arlington, Virginia
• San Mateo-Hayward bridge crossing California’s San Francisco Bay – the longest bridge in the state.
• Robert S. Maestri Bridge over Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana
• Albemarle Sound Bridge and the Lindsay C. Warren Bridge crossing the Alligator River in North Carolina
• Florida’s Pensacola Bay Bridge
• Vicksburg Bridge in Mississippi
• Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge in Washington state

Rhode Island had the highest percentage of structurally deficient bridges at 23 percent. West Virginia, Iowa, South Dakota and Pennsylvania rounded out the top five.

According to the Federal Highway Administration’s website, the definition of structurally deficient was changed in 2018. The new definition limits the classification to bridges where one key structural element, such as the deck, superstructure, substructure or culverts, was rated in poor or worse condition. All of the data above, including those for previous years, uses the new definition.

Dr. Alison Premo Black, the organization’s chief economist who conducted the analysis, called the report “no April Fool’s joke.”

“America’s bridge network is outdated, underfunded and in urgent need of modernization,” said Black. “State and local government just haven’t been given the necessary resources to get the job done.”

The Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group encourages strong federal investment in transportation infrastructure.

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.

*Editor's Note: A previous version of this story had the incorrect number for "Percent of bridges that are structurally deficient." We apologize for the error.