Area bridges go under review

Five major Philadelphia bridges are among 54 in Pennsylvania slated for special inspections in the next four months as a direct result of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis.

The five are the Girard Point Bridge on I-95 spanning the Schuylkill, and four Delaware River crossings: the Walt Whitman, Ben Franklin, Betsy Ross and Tacony-Palmyra. Of those bridges, only the Tacony-Palmyra, built in 1929, is rated "structurally deficient," as are about 12 percent of the nation's bridges.

Being structurally deficient does not mean that a bridge is unsafe. Rather, it means it has at least one deteriorating structural component.

State Transportation Secretary Allen D. Biehler announced the inspections yesterday in response to a call late Thursday from U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters. She asked all states to take a close look at their steel-arch truss bridges.

This is the type of structure that failed Wednesday evening along I-35W in Minnesota. State Department of Transportation spokesman Rich Kirkpatrick said the inclusion of the Ben Franklin and Walt Whitman - which are suspension bridges - was done to "go beyond" the federal directive to ensure bridge safety.

Peters' federal order gave states the option of conducting new inspections or reviewing past reports. Biehler decided on new inspections, which will cost about $2 million, out of what he termed "an abundance of caution."

In New Jersey, Gov. Corzine already had ordered the transportation department to conduct a 45-day examination of all of the state's 6,400 bridges. The state has seven spans covered by the federal directive, none in the southern part.

"If there's a scintilla of evidence that a bridge is unsafe, we will shut it down," New Jersey Transportation Commissioner Kris Kolluri said yesterday.

In Pennsylvania, Biehler said priority would be given to looking at truss bridges that have been classified as "structurally deficient," 17 in all. Inspections of those bridges, including the Tacony-Palmyra, are to be completed by the end of this month.

"We don't know of any reason why these structures aren't safe," Biehler said.

The 37 other bridges will be inspected by the end of November, the secretary said.

Inspectors, he said, will look at each bridge's superstructure, substructure and decking. To this point, nothing has come out of the Minnesota disaster that would lead inspectors to look for any special problems, Biehler said.

Of the 54 truss bridges, 28 (including the Girard Point) are owned by PennDot, the other 26 by various cities, counties and commissions.

The Walt Whitman, Ben Franklin and Betsy Ross are the property of the Delaware River Port Authority. The Tacony-Palymra, sections of which use a steel-arch truss, is run by the Burlington County Bridge Commission.

Liz Verna, spokeswoman for the commission, said that the rating of "structurally deficient" for the Tacony-Palmyra takes into account such factors as the bridge's narrow lanes and lack of shoulders. She said that in the past several years, inspectors have found nothing wrong with the bridge that they categorize as "Priority 1," meaning it must be addressed immediately. She also said the commission inspects each of its bridges annually, twice as often as is required by the federal government, and has a full-time engineer on site.

"The commission is really committed to the safety and maintenance of the bridges," she said.

On Thursday, Pennsylvania put out a list of bridges it said were similar to the Minnesota bridge. The list has only 30 entries on it.

The reason yesterday's list contained 54 bridges, Biehler said, was that the federal government wanted a broader range of structures checked. No bridges in Bucks, Chester, Delaware or Montgomery Counties were included.

In examining bridges, state inspectors typically give each a score indicating the seriousness of any problems found. To date, the state has not released those scores. Biehler said yesterday that he had no objection to making them public in the future.

According to the Federal Highway Administration's National Bridge Inventory, about 25 percent of the 22,000 bridges in Pennsylvania at least 20 feet long are structurally deficient.

That's third-worst among the 50 states, with only Oklahoma and Rhode Island having a higher percentage.

Fewer than 12 percent of the bridges in New Jersey are deemed deficient, a figure slightly better than the national average.

Yesterday, New Jersey put out a list of its eight top-priority bridges for repair or replacement. The only entry from the southern part of the state was the 74-year-old causeway between Somers Point and Ocean City.