Further fall-out from the fallen bridge and it is sad that public leadership needs tragedy to be reminded of their job, and can be so uninformed as to the status of public works under its oversight and care.
Bridge fix-it list grows for state
By Tony Bizjak and Carrie Peyton Dahlberg - Bee Staff Writers
Published 12:00 am PDT Tuesday, August 7, 2007
The number of California bridges deemed structurally deficient has more than doubled in the past decade, data show, but highway officials say it doesn't mean the state's bridges are becoming more dangerous.
California has expanded some relatively minor criteria, such as poor pavement and peeling paint, that it uses to determine whether a bridge is deficient, state Department of Transportation Director Will Kempton said Monday.
However, Kempton acknowledged that money problems also played a role. The state has not had enough funds in the past decade to repair some deficient bridges or to keep others from slipping onto the list.
While Kempton has described the bulk of the deficiencies as minor problems, he said Monday that some bridges in California have ratings as low as the one that collapsed in Minneapolis last week.
He could not immediately say how many or where they are.
Since Thursday, when Kempton first said most of California's bridge problems are minor, his department has been unable to provide a list of what it considers the most serious bridge problems in the state. Department staffers said Monday they still are working to assemble that information.
"The bridges are aging, there is no question," Kempton said in a phone interview with The Bee on Monday. But, he said, the state's biennial inspections indicate "there are no bridges in our system in danger of collapsing."
