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Many Washington bridges need work, year after I-5 span hit

A worker looks at the collapsed portion of the Interstate 5 bridge at the Skagit River in Mount Vernon, Wash., on May 24, 2013. (Associated Press)

MOUNT VERNON, Wash. – A year after an oversize truck knocked a section of the Interstate 5 bridge into the Skagit River, traffic is flowing over the replacement span, but dozens of other aging bridges in Washington are still listed as deficient and an online state bridge map for truckers is stalled for lack of funding.

Two vehicles with three people fell into the water on May 23, 2013. No one died, but state Trooper Sean O’Connell was killed a week later while detouring traffic through Mount Vernon and Burlington.

A temporary span was in place in a month. A permanent span opened in September, and work was completed in November to square off the arched support beams and raise the clearance on the I-5 Skagit River bridge.

The U.S. Department of Transportation 2013 National Bridge Inventory, released in April, shows that of the nearly 8,000 bridges in Washington state, 5 percent are structurally deficient, and 21 percent are functionally obsolete, the Skagit Valley Herald reported Friday.

The Washington state Department of Transportation lists more than 3,700 bridges in its inventory, 141 of which are listed as structurally deficient, spokesman Bart Treece said.

Structurally deficient does not mean the bridge is unsafe, said DeWayne Wilson, a WSDOT bridge management engineer. If a bridge is unsafe for traffic, it will be closed, he said. A bridge is structurally deficient when it is in need of rehabilitation or replacement because at least one major component is deemed in poor or worse condition.

Functionally obsolete means the design is outdated. The rating system is used to prioritize bridges’ repair or maintenance.

Meanwhile, a plan to publicize the height limitations of bridges with an interactive online map is going nowhere, the News Tribune of Tacoma reported Thursday.

“We’ve started working on it, but it’s not funded so we have to get the money out of something else,” said Chris Keegan, a WSDOT operations engineer who oversees bridge maintenance in the department’s Olympic Region. “It’s a very slow process.”