Do You Feel Safe on Our Local Bridges?

Ed. Note: Article written by Caitlin Moran

Thursday's shocking collapse of the I-5 bridge in Skagit County left many people with one question: Are the bridges around me safe?

It's important to note the bridge that collapsed was not among the 391 classified as "structurally deficient" by the Washington State Department of Transportation in 2011. The bridge was, however, designed to be "fracture critical"—meaning the entire structure can fail in the event of serious impact—and officials have said an extra-tall semi struck the upper part of the bridge just prior to the collapse.

Do you feel safe traveling on bridges in Washington state? Tell us in the comments section.

WSDOT marked the Skagit River bridge, which was built in 1955, as "functionally obsolete" in 2011. A step below structurally deficient, functionally obsolete does not refer to a bridge's structural integrity but rather indicates its configuration fails to meet current demands for lane width, shoulder width or "doesn’t have enough vertical clearance for large trucks to pass under, causing repeat hits and damage to the bridge." (No word yet on whether the bridge had been hit by trucks prior to Thursday's incident.)

In Washington, 1,624 out of 7,627 total bridges were deemed functionally obsolete by the Federal Highway Administration in 2009, including 349 in King County. Another 45 of the county's bridges were classified as structurally deficient, meaning a certain component needs repair or replacement. A bridge deemed structurally deficient is not necessarily in danger of collapse, according to WSDOT.

Some of the structurally deficient bridges near Sammamish and Issaquah, as classified by WSDOT, include:

• I-90 floating bridge (prioritized for rehabilitation)
• State Route 203 at Griffin Creek (monitored through inspections)
• State Route 520 floating bridge (under construction)

King County also identified 35 bridges earlier this year that it says are in danger of closing because funds are not available to properly maintain or replace them. The list includes the following Sammamish and Issaquah-area bridges:

• Patterson Creek Bridge, on 292nd Avenue Southeast near SR 202
• Fifteen Mile Creek Bridge, on Southeast May Valley Road
• Fifteen Mile Creek Bridge, on 240th Avenue Southeast
• Issaquah Creek Bridge, on Cedar Grove Road Southeast
• Issaquah Creek Bridge, on Southeast 156th Street
• Issaquah Creek Bridge, on 252nd Avenue Southeast
• Issaquah-Hobart Road, from Issaquah city limits to SR 18
• Evans Creek Bridge, on 196th Avenue Northeast, just south of SR 202
• Northeast 50th Street, from 214th Avenue Northeast to SR 202
• West Snoqualmie Valley Road, from the Snohomish County line to Ames Lake-Carnation Road