State spending $10 million on 77 ‘deficient’ bridges

As bridges go, this one is pretty nondescript with only an eight-digit number for a name.

The bridge is on a lonely, unpaved country road near Viola in Sedgwick County’s far southwest corner. And as an inspector noted in a report, it’s in poor condition.

The bridge qualified to be part of a $10 million state project to help fix or replace 77 rural bridges.

The bridges selected are in 75 counties and two cities, Kansas Department of Transportation said this week in announcing the project.

To be eligible for the state’s funding, a bridge had to be rated as deficient – or unable to carry today’s legal loads. Some of the reasons for that could be an obsolete design or structural deterioration, according to KDOT.

The county’s bridge, which is posted to handle a 15-ton load, had no trouble meeting the deterioration factor.

On a federal scoring scale that goes up to 100 for top condition, the bridge has a rating of 47.5, Public Works Deputy Director Jim Weber said.

The structure was built in the 1930s with a series of small, concrete box culverts so the road could cross a tributary that feeds into the Ninnescah River, he added.

But the boxes have been shifting. Debris collecting upstream can cause a washout on the road that’s only 19 feet wide, Weber said.

To qualify for the funding, a bridge also had to have a daily vehicle count of less than 100 and have a length of 20 to 50 feet.

No problem for Sedgwick County’s bridge, which is on 103rd Street South, just east of 311th Street West. Farm traffic is about all it sees.

“These bridges might have low traffic numbers,” KDOT Secretary Mike King said in a statement, “but they are important to the farmers that use them to get their equipment to fields and crops to market.”

Of the nearly 25,000 bridges in the state, 2,390 are considered structurally deficient as of a 2012 federal report, the most recent information available, KDOT said.

Local governments own nearly 20,000 of the bridges in the state, KDOT said, and 2,313 of those are rated structurally deficient.

While guidelines for the project call for the state to pay for 90 percent of the cost, state money will pay only 30 percent of the cost to replace the bridge near Viola.

That’s because the project capped state funds $120,000 per bridge, or $160,000 if two bridges were being done by the county or city.

But some of the qualified bridges – including Sedgwick County’s – cost more than the state was allowing.

Replacing Sedgwick County’s bridge will cost $400,000, so the county will pick up the tab for the remaining $280,000.

“We didn’t have that many that qualified,” Public Works Director David Spears said, “so we picked one. At least we’re getting something out it.”

The bridge is expected to be replaced in 2016.

This story was originally published October 15, 2014 at 6:50 AM with the headline "State spending $10 million on 77 ‘deficient’ bridges."