37 bridges in Lancaster County are in poor condition, federal report says

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) — The bridge collapse in Baltimore, although caused by an accident, is spotlighting the condition of bridges across the nation.

The U.S. Department of Transportation considers 6.8% of the more than 600,000 bridges it tracks to be in poor condition; that’s more than 40,000 bridges across the nation.

Here in Nebraska, 8% of our bridges are in poor condition, 40% fair and 52% good, according to the National Bridge Inventory report from the Federal Highway Administration.

In Lancaster County, 37 out of 628 bridges are in poor condition, the report says.

Channel 8 visited a few bridges on the poor/structurally deficient condition list, including the one on 14th Street over Cornhusker Highway.

On average, about 19,000 vehicles take this bridge each day, according to USA Today.

The NBI gave the bridge a three in its structural evaluation, meaning “basically intolerable requiring high priority of corrective action.”

Another bridge on Huntington Avenue is also listed as poor/structurally deficient.  A Channel 8 reporter saw cracks and chunks of missing concrete on the bottom of the bridge.

The full database is available here if you’d like to look up a specific bridge.