Gov. Pat McCrory and Republican legislative leaders are facing an issue that will test their governing and budgeting ability.
The Charlotte Observer reports that 14 percent of North Carolina’s rural bridges have structural problems – called deficiencies – and that the state is 14th in the nation with that percentage. The Observer’s analysis of data from the National Bridge Inventory shows 9 percent of urban bridges are deficient.
In addition, 16 percent of the state’s rural bridges are “functionally obsolete,” which means they’re too small for the traffic they’re asked to carry.
If the state were to replace all of the substandard bridges, the tab would run to $16 billion. That, of course, is a prohibitive figure in a state where the annual budget is approximately $21 billion.
Still, McCrory and the General Assembly are going to have to find a way (perhaps by rescinding some of their excessive tax cuts) to do more about this problem. DOT is working on a bridge improvement program, and that’s good. Some 1,000 bridges have been repaired. But it appears from this report and from simply looking casually at some of the rural bridges in particular that this is a problem that is going to be tough to get in front of.
It is in areas like this – bridge repair and highway maintenance and water and air quality – that the government some politicians so like to criticize does its work for the people, vital work that can be, especially when it comes to bridges, life saving.
Talking about a significant percentage of rural bridges is, in North Carolina, no small issue.
The state has 18,000 bridges; about 14,000 of them are called by the Federal Highway Administration rural bridges. Here’s another figure that gives pause: In Dare County on the state’s coastline, 38 percent of the bridges are deficient. That’s in a county that is vulnerable to hurricanes and tropical storms.
Something is being done. More must be done, and soon.
