BIGFORK — Several important, high-traffic bridges across the area have been shut down recently — and all within a few days of each other.
The closures have spurred the question, has something changed in the inspection process to cause these closures, or is it simply a coincidence?
“Honestly, it's not anything that has changed from the department standpoint, other than the fact that we've got a very aging infrastructure with a lot of bridges that are at or past their design life,” said Montana Department of Transportation Missoula District District Administrator Bob Vosen.
The MDT follows a national inspection process, meaning how the bridges are inspected has not changed.
The Maclay Bridge in Missoula and the Bridge Street Bridge in Bigfork closed within five days of each other.
“Those two bridges are both over 100 years old. You know that the taxpayer got their money out of them. They've been bridges that we've been monitoring. They've been load posted for a lot of years. Lots and lots of years, and pure coincidence the inspections were done by different teams evaluated by different consulting teams, reports came back together about the same timeframe but there's not a specific change that's tied to it. In this case, it's coincidence,” said Vosen.
Once MDT receives the paperwork from the bridge engineers stating that the bridge is unsafe for travel, the agency instructs county officials to close the bridge as soon as possible.
The recent Missoula and Bigfork closures coming so close together came as a result of when the paperwork was completed.
“All the bridges today are as young as they're ever going to be again. They continue to age they continue to deteriorate over time. Every time somebody's driving over it — just every day. They'll never be younger than what they are right now," Vosen told MTN News. "So as these bridges continued age, challenges will continue to be in front of them."
The Bridge Street Bridge in Bigfork is shut down to pedestrians because MDT cannot monitor how many people are on the bridge at one time and may exceed the weight limit, causing the bridge to fail.
MDT is working hard to come up with funding and solutions to get these major bridges up and running again. However, it takes a lot of time, work and environmental assessment to get projects such as these started.
