13 St. Charles-Area Bridges Rated 'Structurally Deficient'

There are 13 bridges within 10 miles of St. Charles that are rated “structurally deficient,” according to a Transportation for America report, which also notes that the Main Street/Route 64 bridge over the Fox River is safe but “functionally obsolete.”

The good news is that none of the “structurally deficient” bridges are in St. Charles, Geneva, or Batavia city limits and none of the nearest ones are major traffic thoroughfares across the Fox River.

While functionally obsolete might sound ominous, the Transportation for America report points out that it means the bridge “has older design features not built to current standards.” That does not mean the bridge is deficient — it just means the bridge might not be wide enough or high enough to accommodate state expectations for traffic volumes for vehicle weights and sizes, for example.

Width likely is the issue on the Main Street bridge, where average traffic volumes of 36,100 vehicles per day make it well-known for rush-hour traffic congestion through downtown St. Charles. That's been compounded during the past couple of years during work on the reconstruction of Main Street/Route 64 on the city’s East Side, which has caused its own congestion.

The bridge’s deck and superstructure are rated 8 on a 10-point scale, and the substructure is rated 7, all of which are in a safe range.

Bridges that are rated “structurally deficient” received a rating of 4 or lower on one or more of those components.

The bad news is that there is a deficient bridge as close as Wenmoth Road, which crosses Mill Creek, and another at Joliet and Wilson Streets in DuPage County, a 1933-vintage bridge crossing Kress Creek that handles 11,500 vehicles a day.

To the north, the U.S. 20 Bypass bridge over the Fox River, a major east-west thoroughfare, is rated “structurally deficient.” Built in 1960, that bridge averages 58,200 vehicles a day.

Other deficient bridges you've probably crossed several times include Main Street in Winfield and on Illinois Route 56.

The report also indicates the relative health of bridges we cross every day in Geneva, Batavia and St. Charles. Patch will follow up with a second article regarding those bridges.

The bridge-safety issue was brought to light during President Barack Obama's State of the Union Address. Obama called for a “Fix It First” program to address crumbling infrastructure he says must be fixed now to create jobs to the United States.

Links from this article take you to the Transportation for America report, featuring an interactive map. You can modify the scope of the map by typing in an address, which provides a map showing bridges within a 10-mile radius of the address. The structurally deficient bridges noted in red. 

Illinois ranks 35th among the 50 states, with 8.5 percent of its bridges ranked structurally deficient.

National attention to the issue of bridge safety was ignited in  2007 after the I-35W bridge collapse in Minnesota.

The report also cites what it calls a “transit funding crisis” that will become more acute over time. Of the nation’s 600,000 bridges, 383,060 will be more than 50 years old by 2030, the report states.

3 Nearby Structurally Deficient Bridges

Wenmoth Road

• Crosses Mill Creek

• in Kane County

Structurally deficient 

• Built 1977

Ratings 

• Deck: 2

• Superstructure: 2

Inspections 

• Inspection frequency: 24 months

• Last inspection: April 2009

Joliet and Wilson

• Crosses Kress Creek

Structurally deficient 

• Built 1933

• National bridge ID 000022309916705 

• 11,500 cars per day (average) 

Ratings 

• Deck: N

• Superstructure: N

• Substructure: N

Inspections 

• Inspection frequency: 24 months

• Last inspection: October 2000

U.S. 20 Bypass

• Crosses the Fox River

• in Kane County

Structurally deficient 

• Built 1960

• National bridge ID 000045000410301

• 58,200 cars per day (average) 

Ratings

• Deck: 4

Inspections 

• Inspection frequency: 24 months

• Last inspection: September 2009

Contributing: Ted Schnell

Related:

• The president proposes a plan to “Fix It First” — how will Congress respond?

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