Oregon’s annual bridge report shows another year of decline

By Chris M Lehman (KLCC)
Jan. 21, 2022 7:58 p.m.
The Alsea Bay Bridge connecting Waldport, Oregon, to Bayshore.

The Alsea Bay Bridge connecting Waldport, Oregon, to Bayshore.

Oregon Department of Transportation/Flickr

Oregon’s bridges continue to decline, according to an annual report released this week by the Oregon Department of Transportation.

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The agency manages nearly 2,800 bridges. The number of those spans heading down on the quality ranking scale continues to outpace the number of bridges that have been replaced or upgraded.

ODOT spokesperson Katherine Benenati said it’s the tenth year in a row that’s happened.

“Over half of the bridges in service in Oregon were designed before 1970, and they just weren’t designed to carry the traffic volumes and the weights of larger vehicles that are common today,” she said.

Benenati said recent state and federal funding should help ODOT make some headway in keeping up with aging bridges. But she said drivers should expect more load restrictions and possibly closures in the years ahead.

Still, Benenati said drivers should feel confident about crossing bridges, even those that are rated in “poor” condition.

“Just because a bridge is considered ‘poor,’ which is something that we call ‘structurally deficient,’ it’s not unsafe and it’s not likely to collapse,” she said. “And we’re out there inspecting them. If the bridge was considered unsafe, we would close it.”

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