My opponent worked for the Lincoln County Road Department for 27 years and was a road maintenance supervisor for the last 18 of those years. He is using that background to try to scare voters into believing we’re letting them drive across dangerous bridges and doing nothing about it. In media interviews and candidate forums, he also says we haven’t applied for state grant funds to replace most of those bridges. It is true that the County has not applied (for good reasons) for funds to replace most of those bridges, but there is so much more to the story.

Every two years, all bridges with a span length of 20, or more, feet are inspected under the National Bridge Inspection Standards (NBIS).  A bridge can be inspected more often if circumstances warrant.   While not required, the County has also included bridges with a span of less then 20 feet.  These inspections are performed by a consulting firm hired and directed by the Oregon Department of Transportation.  From these very detailed inspections, a numerical value between 0 and 100 is computed called a sufficiency rating.  A sufficiency rating is comprised of 55 percent structural adequacy and safety, 30 percent serviceability and functional obsolesce, and 15 percent essentiality for public use.  It is this number is that is used to determine the eligibility of a bridge for Federal funding.  A sufficiency rating of less then 50 makes a bridge eligible for Federal replacement funding.    

The NBIS inspection may result in a bridge being classified as “structurally deficient.”  The fact that a bridge is structurally deficient does not imply that it is unsafe. A structurally deficient bridge typically needs maintenance and repair and eventual rehabilitation or replacement to address deficiencies. To remain open to traffic, structurally deficient bridges are often posted with reduced weight limits that restrict the gross weight of vehicles using the bridges. If unsafe conditions are identified during a physical inspection, the structure will be closed. 

There’s been much publicity in the Portland media about the aging Sellwood Bridge, which has a sufficiency rating of 2, yet remains open to traffic. As The Oregonian reported earlier this year: “The sufficiency rating alone was never meant to signal mortal danger or to prompt a bridge closure. It was designed to help federal highway managers get politics out of bridge funding.”

NBIS inspections and the resulting sufficiency rating are great management tools.  But they are far from the only factors to be considered when deciding whether, or not, to replace a bridge.

The 2007 inspections included 89 bridges under County jurisdiction.  Of those, 17 generated sufficiency ratings of less then 50.  Of these, three are unique, historic wooden covered bridges.  All have been rehabilitated, are in reasonably good shape and capable of adequate performance despite the fact that they generate sufficiency ratings in the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s.  Even setting aside their historic nature, no reasonable evaluation leads to the conclusion that they need to be immediately demolished and replaced with modern concrete or steel structures at huge public expense.  The same is generally true for most of the other bridges with less then 50 sufficiency ratings.

Eventually, bridges do need to be replaced.  The County currently has six bridges at some stage of the replacement process.  The most notable of these is the Logsden Bridge, currently under construction.  The Canal Creek Bridge has been substantially completed. The County has secured about $6.1 million from a variety of federal and state sources to fund these projects.  For two of the bridges that are at the early stages of project development, additional help is expected, but not yet secured.

Regarding pavements, management’s objective is to keep pavements at a pavement condition index above 50, meaning that the pavement is in the Fair, Good or Very Good categories.  The County’s last reported weighted Pavement Condition Index for our approximately 190 miles of paved County roads was 77.9.  This means that virtually all pavement is in the desired Fair, Good or Very Good categories.  An index below 50 places pavement in the Poor or Very Poor categories.  The County has a number of segments, totaling approximately one mile, of pavement in these categories.  In all cases, staff has recommended that site conditions and usage do not warrant the expense of upgrading these segments to the Fair, Good or Very Good categories 

Grant applications for state and federal funds are rarely cheaply, quickly and easily submitted.  Quite the contrary, they are often very complex, demanding a considerable investment of staff time and money.  The County must be an eligible applicant, the County’s project must be an eligible project, the amount of grant money available must be adequate and there needs to be a reasonable chance of a successful County application.  A grant program can not be expected to cover, and generally does not, 100 percent of the cost of a project.  The County must be prepared to provide a local cash match, an in-kind match of services, or some combination of both.  Sometimes the County is a successful applicant, and sometimes it is not.

In short, prudent management and limited resources demand that we establish grant application, pavement project, and bridge replacement project priorities.  They demand that we evaluate each potential project for both the level of need and the availability of resources.  They demand that we are judicious in our expenditure of County funds.

My opponent wants to draw this issue in simple, black-and-white terms. But as is so often the case, reality is much more complicated. The bottom line: we’ve got a good system of roads and bridges, and we’re working very hard to keep it that way. 

Photographs: Replacement of the Logsden Bridge.