Bridging the Great Divide

Study shows bridges in Illinois are deteriorating - Yahoo! Finance: "CHICAGO (AP) -- Nearly 2,300 bridges in Illinois are 'structurally deficient' and in need immediate repair, a transportation advocacy group announced Tuesday.

Transportation for America said in its report that the bridges in need of repairs are crossed more than 8.1 million times a year and include five -- three that cross Chicago's famed Lake Shore Drive -- that see more than 100,000 vehicles cross a day.

"Drivers in Illinois are regularly traveling across heavily traveled bridges with 'poor' ratings -- bridges that could become dangerous or closed without repair," according to the report.

The group found that at least one in five bridges in three rural counties -- Wabash, Shelby and White -- were deemed structurally deficient, and that more than 17 percent of the bridges in Christian and Hancock counties received the same rating.

More than 7,000 of the state's 26,000 bridges at least 50 years old -- a number that will climb to 14,000 in 2030, the report said. However, it does not identify any dangerous bridges now open to the public in Illinois.

"We don't want to be alarmist but it is imperative we stay on top of these bridges as they age," said David Goldberg, spokesman for the group, which based its report on Federal Highway Administration data.

The state of the nation's bridges have come under greater scrutiny ever since 2007 when a Minneapolis bridge collapsed, killing 13 people. In Illinois, for example, The Associated Press followed that tragedy with its own study that found that more than 1,500 of the state's bridges carried worse structural ratings than the bridge in Minneapolis...