BY THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Published February 20, 2001
LANSING (AP) Every day, a bus driver for the rural Leslie School District must count the students on board before heading across a bridge on Onondaga Road in Ingham County. If there are more than 20, the driver must make a two-mile detour. The bridge can"t take the weight.
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Another Leslie bus driver takes a five-mile detour each day to pick up three students in Jackson County. The bridge leading to their homes has been closed for a year because it needed to be replaced.
The extra time and wear and tear on the buses frustrate Steve Mullins, the district"s transportation director. But he would rather reroute the buses than take any chances.
"If we can"t cross it, we won"t cross it," he said. "It"s unfortunate. But kids are my business, you know?"
The bridges in Mullins" district are among the 33 percent in Michigan that have structural problems, according an Associated Press analysis of data from the Federal Highway Administration. That"s slightly higher than the national average of 29 percent.
The data, which rated bridges as of Aug. 31, 2000, show 2,181 of Michigan"s 10,581 bridges are "structurally deficient," which means they have cracked concrete, rusted steel or some other deterioration. Those bridges, like the one on Onondaga Road in southern Ingham County, may have weight limits posted.
The data show another 1,336 bridges are "functionally obsolete" and don"t meet current codes. They may not be wide enough, for example, or are misaligned with the road.
Greg Bukoski, an engineer with the Michigan Department of Transportation"s bridge division, stresses that drivers can still safely use bridges that are rated deficient or functionally obsolete. State and local authorities inspect bridges at least every two years, he said, and more often if there are structural problems.
"A poor bridge doesn"t mean that it needs to be closed," he said.
Still, the state is determined to reduce the number of deficient and obsolete bridges to 10 percent by 2007. To that end, the state is spending about $185 million each year on its state bridge repair program. MDOT oversees 4,325 bridges county and city governments oversee and repair the rest.
Ron DeCook, deputy director of the County Road Association of Michigan, also said the numbers shouldn"t cause panic. For example, Michigan"s most famous span, the Mackinac Bridge, is considered functionally obsolete.
