Upstate drivers cross 500 deficient bridges

This Hammett Bridge Road bridge is currently under a weight limit restriction. Because of money problems, hundreds of bridges in the Upstate probably won't get repairs this year. (Patrick Collard/Staff) e-mail this story print this story

The bridge is rated structurally deficient. Huffman said she didn't know that.

She is one of thousands of motorists who cross bridges every day that state inspectors have labeled deficient.

More than 500 deficient bridges span creeks and rivers in Greenville County and other areas of the Upstate. Yet only a fraction will be replaced or repaired this year because of a lack of funding.

"This needs to be addressed," said Hanif Chaudry, who chairs the department of civil and mechanical engineering at the University of South Carolina. "You don't want something to fail and then ask, 'What should we do now?'"

It is an issue that shouldn't be ignored by state lawmakers, Chaudry said.

Some deficient bridges bear cracks underneath. Others sit on timber pilings that have aged beyond their years. Some serve far more traffic than they were designed to carry when they were built decades ago.

While the bridges aren't in immediate danger of collapsing, they need repairs ranging from fixing cracks to replacing the entire structure, state engineers said.

Huffman said safe roads are a priority for her and she's willing to pay to fix them.

"I know it's not politically correct to suggest higher taxes, but it wouldn't offend me to have a higher gasoline tax," she said. "I hope it wouldn't be an extreme increase."

Almost 7 million square feet of bridge driving surface is considered deficient in the state, up from 4 million in 1999. State officials have projected that unless lawmakers rescue more bridges, that level of deficient ones will continue rising each year.

Lee Floyd, the state's chief bridge inspection engineer, said the problem of fixing the bridges comes down to money.

"South Carolina is a growing state," he said. "We haven't historically had the money to keep pace with our needs. And now the needs are far outpacing our current funding ability."

So much so, in fact, that the number of bridges classified as deficient has grown by almost 200 during the past two years even as the state spent more than $140 million during that time on bridge repairs, most of it in federal funds.

The bridge problem parallels deteriorating roads in the state. Secondary roads haven't been paved in four years due to a lack of funding and the state now leads the nation in the death rate on secondary roads.

While the state's bridges haven't claimed lives, officials said their condition is worsening with little relief in sight.

Floyd said 2,209 bridges statewide are classified as deficient, meaning they either have structural problems or the traffic flow is more than the bridge was designed to handle.

That amounts to one out of every four bridges.

Fixing or replacing every deficient bridge over the next 20 years would cost $1.75 billion, according to a 2001 study.

"Our bridges need immediate attention," said Sen. John Land of Manning, leader of Senate Democrats. "They're getting to the point where they're actually dangerous."

The problem is acute in the Upstate, which has more bridges than any other section of South Carolina because of numerous creeks, streams and roads.

Debbie Painter of Greer also said she didn't know the bridge on Old Spartanburg Road had structural deficiencies, but she has seen its flooding problems.

"When the water gets up down there, I don't feel safe going over it at all," she said. "That's probably where the damage is from — it floods all the time down there. When we have a super hard rain ... that water can get very high. When it floods down there, I don't even go that way."

The two-lane bridge is scheduled to be replaced next year, said Bill McCall, a DOT bridge inspector who examines Upstate bridges.

Floyd said many of the state's bridges were built beginning in the mid-1950s and made of pre-cast concrete with timber pilings. Most were built before 1965, he said.

"What's happened is treated timber has a life expectancy of 30 to 40 years," he said. "If you do the math, you know that a lot of those timber pilings are becoming deficient."

Concrete decks on some are showing fatigue and T-beams on others have cracks, Floyd said.

On a bridge spanning the Enoree River on Gibbs Shoals Road, for instance, cracks show on the pavement and the beams underneath. The bridge is scheduled to be replaced in 2007, McCall said.

When conditions worsen, officials can restrict vehicle weight, as they have done with the bridges on Old Spartanburg Road and Gibbs Shoals Road.

That can mean long detours for trucks and heavy vehicles. The bridge must be closed when it can't hold three tons — the weight of a heavy pickup.

Bob Tomfohrde of Greer has noticed the weight restriction signs on the Old Spartanburg Road bridge, and he's had to turn his 16,000-pound RV around. But he says trucks don't always follow the restrictions.

"Tractor-trailers are going across it all the time and that's 40,000 pounds," he said.

Chaudry said bridge problems are part of a large national issue of deteriorating infrastructure. For decades, he said, states have not been able to pay for all the repairs needed to fix deficient bridges, roads and highways.

The American Society of Civil Engineers documented the problems in a 2003 "report card" that counted 162,000 deficient bridges.

Land wants to address the issue with a gas-tax increase.

"We can't sit back any longer and hide behind these no-tax pledges," he said.

"The gasoline users fee is the fairest tax known to man. The more you drive, the more you pay," he said. "We're in a serious situation already and to put it off any longer is just bad business."

But other lawmakers want to try to send DOT money from fees already being collected for transportation but used for other programs.

Sen. Greg Ryberg, an Aiken Republican who chairs the Senate Transportation Committee, wants money being spent on economic development from a highway trust fund returned to DOT.

"I think we need to make sure that funds designated for highway use are properly used before we look at any other alternate ways of funding," he said.

Rep. Robert Harrell, a Charleston Republican who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, agreed.

Harrell has introduced legislation that would use drivers' license fees, vehicle registration fees and other transportation fees for road repairs.

Currently much of that money is sent to the state's general fund, where it is spent on a variety of programs.

Harrell said officials will have to look at the state's transportation needs and divide the money according to priorities. He said his bill would provide money for bridges that don't use federal funding.

"Some of those bridges, you or I or most people would look at them and not see the deficiency," he said. "Some of them are in pretty bad shape and something needs to be done quickly. The bottom line is there's not enough money to do everything everyone believes needs to be done so we have to prioritize the money we have."

Land, however, said redirecting current fees won't fix the bridge or roads problems. And he said it doesn't capture money from some of the biggest users of the state's roads — out-of-state tourists.

"To shift all these fees is just a checkers game," he said.

Tee Hooper, chairman of the DOT Commission, said commissioners will wait until the Legislature chooses one of the many transportation funding proposals before deciding how much, if any, additional money will go to bridges.

"I think we have to prioritize according to need," he said.

Meanwhile, officials expect to begin using a bridge testing system developed at Clemson University to determine more exactly what shape the bridges are in.

Engineering professor Scott Schiff developed the system so that the state can more accurately choose which bridges need repairs ahead of others. The testing is expected to begin this summer, he said.