Inspectors with the Texas Dept. of Transportation (TxDOT) identified six fracture-critical main span deck truss bridges in their state immediately following the Minneapolis bridge collapse. Two were in Austin, one in Fort Worth, one in Corpus Christi and one in Laredo.

TxDOT performed fracture-critical inspections on four of those six bridges. The other two had received a fracture-critical inspection within six months. “We did go back and re-inspect those,” says William R. Cox, director of TxDOT’s bridge division. “Four of those were further out, but we did reallocate our resources and go back and inspect them,” he says. TxDOT didn’t uncover any critical findings. No bridges were shut down or load-restricted due to TxDOT’s evaluation, Cox says.

Related Links: States Show Mixed Progress In Year After Minnesota Failure Minnesota Disaster Alters Design Of New River Span in Oregon No Problems Found in Florida, Georgia or South Carolina Structures in Southwest Among the Safest in U.S. No Decision Yet By Indiana On Spending New Federal Funds California Found All Steel Deck Truss Structures Safe

TxDOT currently inspects its more than 50,000 bridges, both state and locally owned, every 24 months. Cox says fracture-critical inspections are done separately and are “hands-on, within arm’s length of the fracture-critical detail.”

Cox says bridge inspection frequency should be based on the age of structure, type of structure and its location. “It shouldn’t be left up to a blanket annual inspection,” he says.

Cox says that knowledge of fracture criticality details that weren’t understood well in the 1960s and 1970s are not repeated today. “Considering a bridge that was built today...on the same frequency as one that’s more critical or one built in the 1950s without regard for many of the concerns that we have today, doesn’t seem correct,” he says.

A pending U.S. House bill would set more stringent federal bridge inspection requirements, including annual inspections of certain spans. Cox says, “We have limited resources.” He adds, "We’ll have to change the process we use today and get more resources‹-money and people. It would double our inspection requirements.”

Texas is receiving a $32-million allocation of the $1 billion in additional federal bridge funds that Congress approved last year. In deciding where to use that added obligation authoriity, Cox says, “We’ve chosen a group of bridges that meet the highway bridge program requirements.” TxDOT will let several projects in early fiscal 2009, beginning in September. TxDOT will be rehabilitating or replacing structurally deficient or functionally obsolete bridges.

He adds, “Currently we have 10,000 bridges in the state that are eligible for the highway bridge program.” About 1,800 are structurally deficient and the remaining are functionally obsolete. Cox says, “We have about $230 million a year to address bridges. We have a large need and limited amount of money to fund the projects.