More than one in nine bridges across America (66,405) about 11% of the nation’s total are structurally deficient. Approximately 260 million travel over these bridges according to Transportation for America, the group that released the report. A structurally deficient bridge does not pose an immediate danger to the public but is instead defined as one in need of extensive maintenance and repair. The Federal Highway Administration estimates that repairing all of these bridges would cost $76 billion. Report may have been prompted by the May 2013 Skagit River Bridge collapse in the state of Washington where part of the bridge collapsed because an overloaded truck crashed into it. Compared to the report released in 2011 by the same group on the same topic, the number of structurally deficient bridges is rising and should it continue in the next ten years, one in four bridges will be 65 years or older, greatly increasing their chances to be deficient.
