Hat tip to Nathan Johnson!
Earlier this month, I mentioned South Dakota's dilapidating bridges. Since then, I haven't heard stories of any bridges collapsing and sending folks into the drink. Whew!
But if you'd like to know where you or a tractor you love could go for an unexpected downward ride, check out this fun interactive map from the nice if somewhat worried people at Transportation for America. You can look by state, or you can use the "Near You" mapper to find deficient bridges within a ten-mile radius of your house.
The map shows two code-red bridges in Madison. One is at the 500 block of East Center Street:
It doesn't look so bad from on top, but...
I'm not an engineer, but does that left support look a little slanted to you?
The other shaky Madison bridge is two blocks east over the same creek on the 100 block of South Garfield, on the west side of the Center Street hockey rink and park:
Again, not so bad on top. Underneath...
Things look straight here, just a couple cracks in some of the overhead concrete. It makes sense that the Center Street bridge might be worse off: it was built in 1960 and carries 1283 cars a day, according to the T4America data. The Garfield bridge is a Bicentennial child, built in 1976, and bearing a meager 100 cars a day... and possibly fewer since the city closed the Garfield Avenue railroad crossing.
These two bridges will be rebuilt in 2017. Until then, keep your fingers crossed!
Of course, if you make it across those bridges you may still bottom out on the rough stretch of far eastern Center Street:
On behalf of my fellow cyclists, Ouch!
Double ouch! I strongly recommend First Street North. The bridge there was built in 2003, and it only carries 290 cars a day.
Punch your address into the T4America map, and you can find traffic numbers and maybe ratings for your nearby bridges. I find that the golf course bridge that I and my precious cargo cross nearly every day is still marked green... but not by much. Built in 1956, that bridge gets a 6 rating for substructure and 5s for deck and superstructure. 9 is tops; 0 is awful; 4 earns a deficiency rating. T4America says the golf course bridge carries just 91 cars a day, but that seems awfully low... especially now with the fishermen out in force again! There's also no count on bikes or golf carts.
Backing up to the big picture, South Dakota has the fifth-highest percentage of deficient bridges, 20.3%. But on the bright side, those bridges appear not to get used much. They carry only 4.6% of our daily bridge traffic. Compare that to fourth-worst Rhode Island, where 21.6% of the bridges are deficient, and those bad bridges bear 18.9% of the daily bridge traffic.
Governor Daugaard says we've all got to do our part to promote economic development, so don't let those shaky bridges and bumpy roads keep you from coming to Madison! Here's my "Madison's awesome!" Chamber of Commerce photo of the week:
Look at that! Burbling brook, sprawling green space, cool bicycle, and, up there on the left, a backpack dude riding his skateboard to class. Is Madison cool, or is Madison cool? But then, what else would you expect?
Time to buy stock in companies that purvey cement, steel, aluminum, copper, glass ...