Maybe Governor Daugaard should recruit some bridge engineers from Minnesota. Governing compiles Federal Highway Administration bridge inspection data for 2012 and finds that South Dakota ties with Rhode Island for the fourth-highest percentage of structurally deficient bridges in the nation, behind Iowa, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania.
Now don't get nervous on the Exit 109 overpass: "structurally deficient" means one or more bridge components show deterioration, not that the bridge is unsafe. And you'd expect some deterioration up in this harsh Great Plains climate, right?
But compare the numbers for South Dakota and Minnesota:
| State | Total Bridges |
Structurally Deficient |
Functionally Obsolete |
StrucDef% | FuncObs% |
| South Dakota | 5,870 | 1,208 | 237 | 20.6 | 4.0 |
| Minnesota | 13,121 | 1,190 | 423 | 9.1 | 3.2 |
("Functionally obsolete" means the bridge was built according to outdated standards.)
Minnesota has more than twice as many bridges as South Dakota, subject to the same snow and temperature extremes, yet they have 18 fewer structurally deficient bridges. Percentage-wise, South Dakota's bridge deficiency is twice as bad as Minnesota's. That's one more sign that Minnesota does a better job of investing its public wealth in public goods.
It is a symptom of today's 'drive-by' politics. There may be another name for it, but for me this works.
Our infrastructure is a mess. Road and bridges are the very tip of the iceberg. Our power grid is grossly out-dated and on the verge of total collapse. Rail service is dire need of upgrading, we don't have decent passenger rail service anywhere in the state. Sewer systems are rapidly degrading. We don't have enough water in some of our towers to put out a camp fire. There is enough infrastructure work to get done it would keep many contractors in business for several years maybe even decades.
Why don't we do anything? Simple, the situation is not critical, yet. We put band-aids on our systems just to get by. We won't do anything until someone gets killed or at least seriously hurt, and makes head line news. When the W-35 bridge collapsed, there was investigations, inspections, and wouldn't you know it, many of the problem bridges got fixed PDQ. I hope it doesn't come to that here.
South Dakotans are rugged individualistic and personally responsible to get across the river with or with out a good bridge. But mainly they do not like taxes and will cut waste no matter what the waste might be. Minnesotans call that consequences of not being your brothers keeper.