Show Me Safe Bridges!

On January 19th, Governor Mike Parson delivered his  State of the State address  for 2022. As is typical of the annual speeches, he discussed the trials and tribulations faced by Missouri and Missourians over the last year. Naturally, he also discussed the state's achievements in the last year, and his administration's plans to continue solving problems over the next 12 months.

Included in Parson's address was an update on the state of Missouri's bridges. The Governor stated that, "We are incredibly proud of the progress that has been made thanks to Focus on Bridges. This program set out to repair or replace 250 bridges across the state. We are now nearing completion of 75 percent of those bridges, and this program’s success has allowed us to leverage hundreds of millions of dollars in additional infrastructure investments in every region of the state."

Governor Parson also added, "That is why we are proposing $75 million dollars to continue our Transportation Cost-Share program for road and bridge projects that bring economic impact to our state… And $100 million dollars to improve low-volume roads and minor routes across the state of Missouri."

According to the  Federal Highway Administration's National Bridge Inventory , which provides data regarding the location and quality of bridges across America, Missouri has about 25,000 bridges state-wide. Those same data indicate that only about 9% of bridges (roughly 2200) in the state are in what the Federal Highway Administration describes as "poor" condition.

The above map displays the bridges described by the Federal Highway Adminsitration as being in poor condition. (For geographic reference, the boundaries of incorporated places are also shown.) They are distributed statewide, with clusters north of I-44 (especially in the northwest of the state) and east of US 67. Most of the 'Poor' bridges are on rural state primary and secondary highways (the letter routes) and on county roads. Each interstate route, though, seem to have a few bridges in poor condition, particularly I-70.

Interestingly, there is a wide variety in the age of bridges in this worst condition. Some are surprisingly young, including a bridge near Buffalo that were built as recently as 2017. Of course, some of the bridges rated as poor are practically ancient. About 25 bridges statewide are listed as being built in 1901, the oldest extant bridges in the database. One built in 1893, the Pentecostal Bridge east of Westphalia, showed it really needed replacement in August 2020 when, as seen in the photo below, it collapsed under the weight of a semi-tractor trailer.

For the sake of comparison, our second map features road bridges in Missouri evaluated as being in what the Federal Highway Administration describes as "fair" condition. (Place boundaries were also included for reference.) These 12,718 bridges represent a slim majority (51.7%) of Missouri's total of 24,590. Many urban and suburban bridges are in fair condition. As a testament to the fact that the age of a bridge is no guarantee of its condition, there are many bridges built before World War II included int the fair category. Given that so many bridges are rated as fair, it's hard to pick out geographic patterns. There are fewer bridges in fair condition in the rugged south-central part of the state - but that is likely due to the fact that there are simply fewer people in that area and, thus, fewer roads and bridges.

Our final map is of road bridges in Missouri evaluated as being in overall "good" condition according to the Federal Highway Administration. (Place boundaries were also included for reference.) 9,654 of Missouri's 24,590 bridges (roughly 39.3%) are in good condition. Similar geographic clusters as in the other two emerge, in the northern, southeastern, and especially the southwestern parts of the state. Warrensburg, Kirksville, and New Madrid County seem to be hubs for good rural bridges.

Assuming that repairs to Missouri bridges continue as planned, the state's transportation infrastructure appears to be in fairly reasonable condition. The fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of bridges in the state are not ranked as poor by the Federal Highway Administration. Furthermore, those that are are concentrated well away from the routes that are critical for commerce and economic growth.