Transportation infrastructure: U.S. Senate approves $1 billion amendment for bridge improvements

Jeff Berman, Senior Editor -- Logistics Management, 9/11/2007

WASHINGTON—The United States Senate added and approved a $1 billion amendment yesterday that would fund the replacement and rehabilitation of structurally deficient bridges across the country, according to the office of U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-Wa.).

This amendment comes some six weeks after the bridge on Interstate 35W in Minneapolis collapsed into the Mississippi River.

Senator Murray offered the amendment to the Senate’s Departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) Appropriations bill, and it was agreed to by a 60-33 vote.

Murray’s office issued a statement saying that this amendment provides an additional $1 billion under the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Bridge Replacement and Rehabilitation Program, which offers grants to each state for bridge replacement, bridge rehabilitation, preventative maintenance, seismic retrofitting, bridge inspections and activities designed to protect bridges and extend their life spans.

“While we have built a national highway system that is the envy of the world, it is now no secret that our government has failed to adequately funds the maintenance needs of that system,” said Murray in a speech made on the Senate floor yesterday. “Increasing traffic has put added stress on a system that simply wasn’t designed for it. And, as a result, our bridges and deteriorating far faster than we can finance their replacement.”

The statement added that for the past five years an average of $5.3 billion has been spent on bridge rehabilitation and replacement, and this amendment would add to this level by approximately 20 percent.

While this additional funding would increase federal funding for bridge repair and replacement, an Associated Press report noted that these additional funds “would barely make a dent in the $65 billion nationwide backlog of bridge repairs identified by the Department of Transportation (DOT).”

Although this funding may be viewed as a good first step, much more is needed to make a truly meaningful difference for shippers, according to William Schutt, an engineer and bridge expert at MATCOR, a Doylestown, Pennsylvania-based firm that designs and installs corrosion prevention systems and technology that protects infrastructure, assets and investment.

“The DOT says that there is a $65 billion backlog but it is far more than that,” said Schutt. “The Civil Engineering Society has pegged that figure as high as $1.6 trillion. This is so little…there is a lot a politics involved. A billion dollars on a problem and a project that the DOT and FHWA has known about for many years will help shippers some sure, but this [funding] does not begin to touch it. I don’t see this funding coming anywhere close to 20 percent [of increasing the $5.3 billion annual average over the past five years].”

The reality of this situation, explained Schutt, is that there is a long way to go on this front, and a lot more needs to be done in Washington D.C. than what is currently happening.

“There was a one-day hearing [on the amendment], and politicians decided to throw money at the problem,” said Schutt. “And the DOT is not using the science or rules or regulations it has available [to begin remedying the current situation] that it applies to other facilities like oil and gas pipelines, which have definitive safety rules that require the testing and certification of the integrity of a pipeline—yet we don’t have strong rules that require the certification and integrity of a bridge. These rules are not being applied to bridges.”

Schutt went on to say the United States is roughly 20 years behind in developing, repairing, and maintaining its transportation infrastructure, stating that structural problems that were identified in the late 1970s have not been fixed by any more than 3-to-5 percent.

“We are not making the process or using the science and the knowledge we have to improve things,” said Schutt. “In the late 1970s, the FHWA identified more than 300,000 bridges of the 500,000 in the federal highway system had corrosion problems that were causing bridge problems. And of those bridges, less than 1,000 have actually been fixed, which is not great.”

One way to remedy this situation, Schutt said, would be to establish a program that certifies the integrity of bridges with the science and tests that are available today. “This happens in private industry when things go awry—and CEOs are held accountable—but not with transportation,” noted Schutt.

The AP report also pointed out that this bill may be vetoed by President George W. Bush, because it exceeds his original request by $4.4 billion.

Corridors of the Future:
The DOT announced yesterday that six U.S. interstate routes will be among the first to participate in a new federal initiative to develop multi-state corridors to aid in reducing congestion on the nation’s highways.

The DOT said in a statement that this announcement follows a year-long competition to select a few interstate corridors from among the 38 applications received from public and private sector entities to join the its “Corridors of the Future” program, which is designed to formulate national and regional approaches to reduce congestion and improve the efficiency of freight delivery.

The following corridors, which represent 22.7 percent of the United States’ national daily interstate travel, will receive funding to implement their development plans as part of this initiative: $21.8 million for I-95 from Florida to the Canadian border; $5 million for I-70 in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio; $15 million for I-15 in Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and California; $15 million for I-5 in California, Oregon, and Washington; $8.6 million for I-10 from California to Florida; and $800,000 for I-69 from Texas to Michigan.