Legislators to review bridge inspection reports

by dennis geisinger

“While it may be a difficult process, I believe it is very important we answer why the 35W bridge collapsed to help Minnesotans restore their faith in our road and bridge system,” Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives Margaret Anderson Kelliher (DFL-Minneapolis) said the day after the one-day Special Legislative Session in the middle of September.

But Kelliher perhaps left out half of the process; it would be difficult as well as slow. DFL legislators may have let the chance for finding real answers pass them by, at least for the present. Governor Pawlenty called the tune again, ensuring that the special session’s agenda was kept short and directed to only the most immediate of issues. DFL leaders were even asked to sign their names that they would not extend the session beyond a day.

Flood relief and federal funds were allocated for the bridge emergency, but Pawlenty was not held to statements he had made soon after the bridge collapse about abandoning his no-new-taxes stance in order to raise the funds for transportation.

Neither was there time to ask questions about Pawlenty’s Transportation Commissioner Carol Molnau, who a number of Senate DFLers, including Senate Transportation Committee Chair Steve Murphy (DFL-Red Wing), are now saying has mismanaged the department. The Senate has, in fact, never confirmed Molnau’s appointment.

Kelliher’s leadership in the House has put the political machinery in place to address questions of the bridge collapse, appointing a Joint Committee in the days following the catastrophe. Bridge inspection reports from the past 40 years, especially those completed since 1990 when the bridge was first rated structurally deficient, will be reviewed.

Sen. Murphy and Rep. Bernie Lieder (DFL-Crookston) were tapped to lead the 16-member body, including eight members from both the House and Senate. The bipartisan committee will review the policies and practices of the Minnesota Department of Transportation and decision making at the department in response to bridge inspection reports will be examined as to whether that contributed to the disaster, according to legislative reports.

Determinations of the extent to which other Minnesota bridges are in peril will be made.

Some state highway engineers and officials say the government is scaring the public by making America’s bridges sound shakier than they really are, using dire-sounding phrases like “structurally deficient” and “fracture critical” to describe bridges in need of repairs.

“People seem to think a bridge is within a hair’s breadth of collapse when they hear these terms,” said Montana’s chief transportation engineer Loran Frazier in a recent Associated Press story. Frazier was quoted from an e-mail survey of his peers after the 35W disaster. “There seemed to be borderline hysteria regarding the bridges,” he said.

This finds at least qualified support from a review of a study prepared for the state legislative auditor ten years ago. The report on spending for the state trunk highway system—according to the study the most heavily used roads in the state at the time—is one that Kelliher has asked to be updated.

The 1996 summary of state transportation begins, “By some accounts, highway infrastructure in Minnesota is in tough shape [but] the typical trunk highway bridge is in good to fair condition.”

As a cautionary note, the study of structures, now ten years on, also notes that, “there is a backlog of bridges that are classified as having structural deficiencies,” and “MNDOT is probably not doing enough preventive maintenance.”