Getting attention this week was an update to a type of report that gets issued in various forms semi-regularly since the I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis in 2007, regarding the condition of bridges nationwide. One-fifth of Iowa’s bridges, over 5000 of them, landed on the most recent “structurally deficient” report. But of those 5025 bridges, 3462 of them are rural local roads (read: gravel) and another 1309 are classified as rural collectors.
For an article interviewing a DOT engineer about what the designation truly means, check this reprint of an Ottumwa Courier story that Emergency Management magazine inexplicably topped with a picture of the High Trestle Trail PEDESTRIAN Bridge, which opened in 2011. (“Iowa…bridge…yep, plug that one in.”)
The report from the American Road & Transportation Builders Association is curiously a couple of years out of date. Comparing the list of top 25 by daily traffic to recent Iowa DOT five-year plans reveals changes to multiple entries. Here’s the 2013-17 plan; here’s the 2016-20 plan.
- Three of the four Sioux City bridges on the list are being replaced right now as part of the I-29 reconstruction and expansion.
- The Centennial Bridge over the Mississippi River had extensive repairs made in 2014 and again in 2015. As a signature bridge, it’s not going anywhere.
- SB I-35 over Grand Avenue in West Des Moines was replaced as part of six-laning the interstate there in 2013.
- In Warren County, SB I-35 over the North River was replaced in 2013, NB I-35 over the North River was replaced in 2015, NB I-35 over the Middle River was replaced in 2014, and SB I-35 over the Middle River will be replaced in 2017.
- The IA 415 bridge over Northwest 66th Avenue in Polk County will be removed in 2019.
- The Edgewood Road bridge over US 30/151/218 in Cedar Rapids had rehab work done in 2013.
- Three of the top 10 are maintained by cities (Davenport, Des Moines, and Cedar Rapids), so information on those will have to be found elsewhere, and the DOT is desperately trying to unload the 11th (University Avenue in Waterloo).
- Of city projects I could track down, the Des Moines Area Metropolitan Planning Organization has put in a request for rehabilitation money for the 30th Street Viaduct — old IA 46, at the southwest corner of the State Fairgrounds — in fiscal 2019.
- Also a city project, Cedar Rapids’ third bridge on the list is scheduled to be replaced this year (FY16) (large PDF, page 23).
The bridges that have had rehabilitation work may still end up on the list for some reason, but they’re not being neglected. It’s a deep infrastructure hole, and there is only so much gas tax money and only so many contractors to go around.
July 20, 2012
July 7, 2013: The Wagon Wheel Bridge in Boone County was accessible to pedestrians after its closure to traffic. In the foreground is the portion of the bridge that was damaged in early August 2015 and removed.
May 22, 2014: Five weeks after this picture was taken, the school building used in Exira for most of the 20th century was 
