Bridge safety leaped to the top of the agenda of federal highway administrator J. Richard Capka in August, when 13 people died in the collapse of a bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis.But even before the disaster, it would have been a personal concern if Capka had examined the bridges on the shortest drive from his home in suburban Virginia to his office in Washington, D.C. On the day the Minneapolis bridge fell, three of those bridges were overdue for their safety inspections.
The inattention to the bridges on the highway administrator's commute is not unique, according to an msnbc.com analysis of newly released records from the National Bridge Inventory. The records, which include inspections through 2006, show several failures in federal oversight of the system designed to ensure the safety of travelers crossing the nation's bridges: The Federal Highway Administration has allowed states to take advantage of a loophole in federal regulations, delaying bridge inspections to every four years instead of the two years normally required. While most states don't use this loophole, calling it unsafe, others drive a truck through it: Nationally, 30,000 bridges are listed on the delayed-inspection schedules, including 10,000 in Illinois alone and more than 3,000 on interstate highways.
Bridges in poor condition have been allowed on these delayed timetables in violation of federal guidelines. Although federal and state officials are bound by law to closely monitor the schedules, their own records show thousands of bridges on delayed-inspection schedules — despite being too decayed, too long or too heavily traveled to qualify.
"Fracture-critical" bridges like the Minneapolis bridge, which could collapse if one part fails, have remained on delayed-inspection schedules in violation of federal regulations. The records show 622 of these vulnerable bridges on four-year timetables.
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