Bridge repairs present challenges

Bridge repairs and replacements continue to challenge Iowa, Illinois and Missouri transportation departments and drivers.

The 2025 Infrastructure Report Card released by the American Society of Civil Engineers gave a C grade for the United States. Planning improvements involve multiple levels of government — the federal Department of Transportation and state DOTs, Regional Planning Agencies, as well as cities and counties.

According to Iowa’s bridge report, there are 23,685 public bridges in Iowa over its many varied waterways and irrigation systems.

The Iowa DOT’s 2025 bridge report said the state features the most poor-condition bridges in the nation, based on Federal Highway Administration data collected in March.

Jim Nelson, an Iowa DOT bridge supervisor, sees the importance of bridges to rural residents.

“Mile-by-mile, the grid really serves the ag and rural communities, and that’s important,” he said. “Modernizing is really important, but there is no reason to take a bridge out of service early when its use can be extended with maintenance, but there’s not always enough funding.”

Poor bridge condition is not an automatic closure call.

“We prioritize repairs immediately, and post load size change signs accordingly. That is more an occurrence in county bridges,” Nelson said.

Harrison County, Iowa, farmer Larry Buss said he has seen good work in his area in recent years.

“We have a lot of bridges in that hill country in the Missouri River valley area,” Buss said. “Up until about 10 years ago, we had lots of issues. It was a real mess.”

County engineer Steve Struble, who retired a few months ago, directed the immense improvement, Buss said.

“He led efforts to get more new and fixed bridges in just the last 10 years than had been done previously in the last 30 to 40 years combined,” he said. “The essence of it as I see it is we have bridge problems in rural Iowa, but it depends on how well your county engineer addresses the problems. Steve made it a lot better for us.

“Big problems were fixed via new or strengthened old bridges. He went to bat for rural people and farmers. An aggressive attitude as he used it makes the biggest difference. That was great.” 

One example Buss mentioned regarded a culvert that was collapsing at harvest time several years ago. The county had closed the road leading to a 22-mile detour. Struble came out with a repair crew that put up a temporary steel one-lane bridge so farmers and rural neighbors could use it until a permanent one could be installed.

“It was only closed three to four days for that construction,” Buss said. “You could take a combine and semi across it because the temporary work was so well done.”

In return, he said it’s important for farmers to follow rules.

“Whatever the limit is posted, be sure to obey it because they’re up for the reason to not overstress bridges or risk more damage or even collapse,” he said.

Monitoring funds

Zach Bitting oversees planning for Iowa’s Statewide Transportation Improvement Program, which identifies federal-aid projects proposed by the Iowa DOT, cities, counties and federal agencies. He works with DOT and local stakeholders to ensure programming entries meet federal requirements.

“Iowa is in the unfortunate position of a high quantity of poor bridges — 4,000 plus are classified as poor,” Bitting said. “It’s just a tremendous amount as Iowa’s seventh in quantity or the number of bridges while we’re 32nd in population.”

The federal DOT has until Oct. 8 to respond to submitted changes from Bitting.

“Quite frankly, we need Congress to act and get those funds put in our bank accounts to move on to November bid-letting on projects,” Bitting said.

Nelson described the planning behind bridge work.

“We try to pair work areas together,” he said. “For example, a section will get repavement done adjacent to bridges while a bridge is repaired to save time and less inconvenience for travelers.”

Nelson said many bridges, particularly on interstates, were built in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Consequently, bridge work is essentially continuous and vital now 50-70 years later.

Other states

In Missouri, the AFSC gave the state’s bridges a C in a recent report. The state is ranked seventh for the largest number of bridges nationwide yet must maintain its inventory with funding from the fourth-lowest gasoline tax in the country, according to the AFSC.

Thus, the statewide inventory improvements lag behind the national average. The report says 12.5% of bridges in Missouri are structurally deficient, compared with 8.9% of bridges nationwide.

Fortunately, the situation is improving.

Over the last 10 years, the Missouri Department of Transportation has directed available funding to its “Safe and Sound” bridge program, which replaced over 800 bridges from 2009 to 2013.

While recent focused efforts by MoDOT and other agencies help keep the status quo, significant challenges remain due to the inability to identify a funding source that is amenable to Missourians. The state has identified 4,800 bridges that need repairs, totaling an estimated $4.2 billion.

Illinois has 4,154 bridges in need of repair, an increase from 4,083 in 2020, according to a National Bridge Inventory January report.

That led to a joint project between the Illinois Center for Transportation and Illinois Department of Transportation underway seeking improvement solutions.