Union County Has NJ's Most Traveled Structurally Deficient Bridge

HILLSIDE, NJ — Union County has the number one most traveled structurally deficient bridges in New Jersey, according to a new analysis by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association.

That bridge is the Garden State Parkway over Mill Road in Hillside. It was built in 1953 and has 197,767 daily crossings.

The analysis reported there are more than 612,000 bridges in the country; of those, 54,259 were rated structurally deficient. In New Jersey, there are 596 of them.

Another Union County bridge to make the list is the I-78 westbound over Quarry Road that came in at number 24. It was built in 1967 and gets 82,834 daily crossings.

Inspectors rate bridge decks and support structures on a scale of zero to nine for deterioration and remedial action. A rating of nine means the bridge is in "excellent" condition. A rating of four or below means a bridge is classified as structurally deficient and in need of repair.

New Jersey state ranked 22nd in the country in highest percentage of bridges deemed to be in poor condition and 29th highest based on the actual number of such bridges.

The 596 structurally deficient bridges account for 8.8 percent of all bridges in New Jersey state. The state said 2,241 bridges are in need of repairs and estimated it would cost $6.3 billion to fix them.

To see the full list of the most traveled structurally deficient bridges in New Jersey click here.

(Image via Google Maps)

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