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Between the Erie Canal, the Finger Lakes and the miles of rivers and streams throughout Cayuga County, tens of thousands of people rely on bridges each day.
No one knows better than the 60 residents of Haiti Island in Mentz the feelings of isolation when connections are broken. And with the recent tragedy in Minneapolis, in which at least eight people were killed when an interstate highway bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River, new worries have surfaced about bridge safety nationwide.
Engineers are trying to determine the cause of the Minneapolis bridge collapse, but reports state the structure was determined “structurally deficient” prior to the collapse. That status, however, is hardly unique.
Cayuga County boasts 146 bridges, and 13 percent are deemed structurally deficient, according Federal Highway Administration data.
This actually puts the county close to the statewide average of 12 percent. Neighboring Seneca County is among the worst in New York, at 22 percent. The county with the most structurally deficient bridges — Hamilton County — has nearly a quarter of its bridges named as structurally deficient.
The state Department of Transportation regularly inspects bridges across the state. Examiners send reports to the owner regarding the general condition of the bridge and rate the structures on a scale of one (potentially hazardous) to seven (new condition.) A rating of four or less results in a structurally deficiency.
But what does this mean?
Tony Ilacqua, spokesman for the state DOT central New York office in Syracuse, says this simply means the bridges have imperfections, but are still safe and secure.
“It's not something people should worry about … We are aware of the condition of the bridges and we do (maintain them),” Ilacqua said.
Drivers may not like the sound of it, but state authorities are vigilant and have updated documents as to the status of every bridge and the required repairs, Ilacqua assured.
“We don't let our bridges get to a condition that the bridges are unsafe. It's unrealistic that every bridge in every county in New York, the region, is a seven,” Ilacqua said.
The state has implemented a 30-day program to review the 49 bridges in New York with deck truss designs, the same design as the one in Minnesota, to ensure their safety, Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced during a press conference last week.
The central New York region of the DOT has one of these structures. An Ithaca bridge carries Steward Avenue and received a high rating, 5.8 out of 7, “which is pretty good,” said Ilacqua.
The regional office covers six counties: Cayuga, Seneca, Onondaga, Oswego, Cortland, and Tompkins. The half-dozen counties have 1,400 bridges total.
State regulations require inspectors to examine a bridge every two years. Four teams and one consultant team look into structures throughout the six-county central New York region daily.
They check the condition of up to 75 bridge components, from span, steel, section changes, welds, rivets, metal thickness, curbs, and even sidewalks, Ilacqua said. The examiners then average the scores, giving more significance to some elements, to come up with a rating of one to seven.
The workers can issue safety flags, ranging in importance. Some flags imply elements need improvement by the next inspection, while others allow crews up to six weeks to address an issue. A more serious infraction provides bridge owners to take prompt action and draft a plan of action within 24 hours.
This ensures people can prioritize defects and worrisome features. A structure receiving several warnings, or flags, translates to more frequent inspections, Ilacqua said.
All of the data from inspections is also used to come up with a federal sufficiency rating. Based on those ratings and the major elements' scores, Cayuga County has 19 bridges in need of replacing, with the worst identified as the Haiti Bridge in Mentz, which has been closed for more than two weeks.
Another roughly 40 bridges are in need some sort of repair. Some improvements can take as little as three hours and can be done in-house, Sterling Highway Superintendent Paul Kelley said, using the recent example of Onionville Road bridge.
Kelley's crew had to fix a post that a vehicle knocked over in the winter. Smaller concerns can affect a rating, but does not make the structure on the verge of collapsing.
Sterling owns five bridges, with many more within town limits maintained by the state park agency, state or county.
Kelley knows how expensive bridge repair can get. The Federal Emergency Management Agency just assisted the town in foundation repairs to the Old State Road bridge.
The spanning edifice was built to rest on the creek bed. During a flood in April 2005, water action moved stones and other objects from under the bridge and created a cavity, Kelley said. Contractors excavated down to the bedrock and created a solid foundation.
FEMA picked up most of the bill because the damage was connected to the flood, which took out another bridge in Mentz. The contractor cost about $70,000, Kelley said.
The town has about $10,000 tucked away for bridge improvements in the road repair budget, but that amount wouldn't even make a dent if they had to replace structures.
And getting federal and state funding for bridges is no easy task, said George Wethey, Cayuga County highway superintendent.
“Definitely that's quite a challenge,” he said. “You're competing with other municipalities. Everybody has the same goals.”
Many bridges in Cayuga County are at a disadvantage because they do not have high traffic counts, thanks largely to their rural locations. Funding decisions are often based on traffic volume.
“It's not that we're not concerned of the safety of less traveled bridges,” Ilacqua said.
But a bridge that carries 80,000 vehicles would deteriorate at a far faster pace than a similar structure that shouldered 8,000, he said.
With nearly 17,450 bridges statewide, authorities have to choose which structures undergo repairs and reconstruction first.
Inspectors prioritize by looking at several factors. Age isn't necessary a good indicator.
Auburn boasts the two oldest bridges in the county. However, the state replaced the one built in 1880 over the Owasco River on Genesee Street. Now the Auburn structure has an almost perfect sufficiency rating and the three main structural elements received high scores as well.
Another received a poor rating - the 121-year-old masonry arch bridge that carries Aurelius Avenue.
Auburn Superintendent of Engineering William Lupien said stone arch river crossings will hold the necessary weight as long as they don't lose the keystone, or stone in the middle where the two sides meet.
After a hurricane in 1972, they made some repairs that are holding up, he added.
Officials look to the type of bridge, location, and traffic patterns to rank the deserving structures.
The state saw an uprising in bridges in the 1940s and 1950s. However, two decades later, leaders didn't invest much money into the infrastructures. New York congress then defeated a Transportation Bond Act, which impacted the road system, including the thousands of bridges, Spitzer said. There's been a lack of investment in the bridges when the state shot down a bond in the late 1970s.
“We're beginning to see in some levels the consequence of that inadequate investment,” Spitzer said.
Some communities are looking at another option that saves money during construction, eases maintenance, and avoids state inspection.
Some agencies have installed large pipes to allow water to flow from one body to another, instead of a structure that spans over the waterway, but this could only happen over smaller waterways such as creek beds, Kelley said. A culvert covers the pipe and the road is fairly flat over the creek.
Municipalities can install culverts as long as the length is around 20 feet or less, Lupien added. Auburn's Walnut Street has an example of this spanning over Hunter Brook.
“It won't be less or more safe, but you wouldn't have the problems,” Kelley said.
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