KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Every day 80,000 cars cross the Missouri River with the help of a bridge over Southbound I-435.
Some of the people inside may wonder how the bridge is holding up with all that traffic.
"I'm always in the back of my mind wondering when was the last time work was done on these bridges," Katherine Dietrick, who works in Lee's Summit, said.
I-435 S over the river is one of more than 3,000 bridges in Missouri deemed structurally deficient. That means a key element is in bad shape.
The federal government collects data every year about bridges across the country. All of that information goes into an annual report by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association. This year Missouri came in 4th for the number of structurally deficient bridges in the state, while Kansas ranked 7th.
"It doesn't surprise us," MoDOT Assistant District Engineer Chris Redline said of the list. Redline said tackling the list is like cutting off the head of a hydra; another bad bridge always pops up.
"The minute we open a new bridge it starts getting old, and eventually it's going to make it to the poor list," he explained.
Both Missouri and Kansas had the same number of structurally deficient bridges on the list this year as they had last year. Redline said the number hasn't budged because repaired bridges are constantly replaced by new ones with problems.
The ARTBA report also lists the most frequently traveled deficient bridges in each state. On both sides of the state line in the Kansas City area, we found the same ones that were on last year's list showed up again this year.
On the Kansas side, those bridges from most traveled to least are:
- 69 Highway over the Kansas River (Wyandotte County)
- I-70 Eastbound over the Kansas River (Wyandotte County)
- College Blvd over Indian Creek (Johnson County)
- Roe over Indian Creek (Johnson County)
- Kansas Avenue over the Kansas River (Wyandotte County)
On the Missouri side, the bridges are:
- I-29 S over Rt AA (Platte County)
- I-435 S over the Missouri River (Clay County)
- I-435 S over Drainage Ditch (Clay County)
- I-29 N over 56th St (Platte County)
MoDOT tells us plans are already in the works to fix its four busiest deficient bridges in the Kansas City area. The agency is working with a contractor to fix the I-435 bridge over a drainage ditch. The other three projects are entering the construction pipeline.
"Hopefully, we can get those under construction in 2020 to 2022," Redline said.
A KDOT spokeswoman said the agency doesn't have any immediate plans to fix 69 Highway or I-70 EB over the Kansas River, but it is investing $88 million in the coming year on other replacements and repairs. Last year, the department spent $10 million on the same work.
ARTBA data from previous reports show in other years both Kansas and Missouri have made significant strides in decreasing the number of bridges deemed deficient. From 2007 to 2016, both states reduced their percentage of structurally deficient bridges by roughly 28 percent.
To chip away at the list faster, Redline said money is the key factor.
"We don't have the resources to make a big impact on that number yet," he said.
