Philly Area Bridges Worst in Nation

About 20 percent of bridges in the Philadelphia area are deficient, according to a study released by Transportation for America. Although that doesn't mean one in five bridges is unsafe, what the study does note is improvement is needed.

Pennsylvania faired worst of all states, with six metropolitan areas possessing a high percentage of deficient bridges. Pittsburgh tops that list with 30 percent of area bridges rated deficient—higher even than the state average of 26.5 percent.

That's not to say Philadelphia got off easy. While, Pittsburgh ranked No. 1 in terms of deficient bridges in metro areas with more than 2 million people, Philadelphia was third nationwide at 20 percent, right behind San Francisco.

Regionally, various bridges on the area's major highways—like I-76, I-95 and I-476—were marked as deficient.

In Philadelphia itself, 149 bridges were labeled deficient.

Locally, the has been closed to one lane of traffic since 2010. PennDOT officials told Patch previously that the connector between Montgomeryville and Horsham would remain closed through 2015.

PennDOT has marked many local areas for bridge replacement or renovations, according to the PennDOT TIP Visualization map. Two bridge rehabilitations are noted for Horsham and numerous others dot the map throughout eastern Montgomery County.

According to the study: "It is important to note that these numbers would be worse without the intensive bridge repair program implemented by Pennsylvania in the last several years, including a quadrupling of state funding for bridge repairs."

To put the nation's shoddy bridge conditions in perspective, the study juxtaposed the number of McDonald's nationwide (approximately 14,000) with deficient bridges (18,239). Furthermore, those fast food joints serve 64 million customers daily, while the bridges service 210 million people every day.

Confirming the study's figures, PennDOT Spokesman Eugene Blaum said the state was aware of deficient bridges and is always working on renovations.

"In Pennsylvania, bridge construction expenditures (including bridges built, rebuilt, or preserved) has more than tripled since 2002. Also, the number of bridges built or rebuilt has also tripled over the same time period," he wrote in an e-mail to Patch.

Currently, approximately 80 bridges in the five-county Philadelphia area are under construction, he said. Statewide, he said there are "5,000 structurally deficient bridges, 42 are closed and 669 are weight-restricted."

It is important to note, he and the study's writers said, that "deficient" does not equate to "unsafe."

"(S)tructurally deficient means that the bridge has deterioration to one or more of its major components. Although deterioration is present, a structurally deficient bridge is safe. If not, the bridge would be closed," he said.

Cataloging bridges nationwide, the Washington, DC-based Transportation for America analyzed the National Bridge Inventory Data, and worked in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration.