Bridge collapse shines light on poor infrastructure in Riverside County
The bridge collapse on I-10 just west of Desert Center has raised questions about the state of California’s roads and bridges.
“The National Association of Engineers does a grading system every year and they’ve given [California a] D-minus for many years,” said John Benoit, a supervisor for Riverside County.
The Tex Wash bridge was given a superior rating and still couldn’t handle the act of nature. According to a 2014 review by the Federal Highway Administration, the bridge earned a 91.5 score out of 100, however was labeled “functionally obsolete”. That means the bridge wasn’t functionally adequate for its tasks, like a shortage of lanes to accommodate traffic flow.
But the collapsed bridge isn’t the only bridge that fit into the category. According to the National Bridges Inventory Database, Riverside County has 250 bridges that are either “structurally deficient” or “functionally obsolete” and more than 30 of them are in the Coachella Valley.
The westbound I-10 bridge near Whitewater, called the East Channel Stubby Wash, got an 89.9 score from the same review. But it was also labeled “structurally deficient” meaning it needs attention because of one or more structural defects. Benoit said it’s a common issue.
“Do we have bridges all over this state that are in desperate need of work? Do we have roadbeds that are in desperate need of work? Yes,” he said. “I don’t think that [the Tex Wash bridge] was the worst, by far. [That] was an act of nature.”
But Benoit added that the bridge emergency expedited the debate on how to fix the California infrastructure problem. “The special session of the legislature has been called. We’re $78 billion behind in basic maintenance of our highways. We’ve got to have a discussion about changing the way we ‘pay the feed’ to build and maintain these roads.”
Nearly half of the roads in the Inland Empire are in poor condition. A new transportation study ranked the Riverside-San Bernardino area as the 14th worst in the nation. Bad roads are estimated to cost motorists around $800 annually.
