Crumbling bridges poses safety threat

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - Have you looked at the condition of some of the bridges in Western New York?

Many of them are crumbling and in need of repair work.

But how long will it be before they get some attention?

Many of the bridges are old and in need of being repaired or replaced.

Charles Sickler, Erie County Senior Engineer explained, "If you don't have the money to replace a bridge and you can't open it with rehab, the only other option to keep it safe is to close it."

Recently the State Department of Transportation closed the Lake Champlain Bridge, also known as the Crown Point Bridge in northern New York after discovering severe erosion of the foundation.

Could this be a sign of things to come?

Assemblyman, Sam Hoyt said, "I would submit to you that, given the funding crisis that we're confronted with, we're going to see a lot more closings."

Consider this: Nearly 80 bridges in Erie County alone are listed as structurally deficient, a federal highway classification.

"It basically means that the bridge is not performing as originally designed," explained Sickler.

Examples include a bridge on Pavement Road in Lancaster.

The maximum load has been reduced to 20 tons.

Not far from there is a bridge on cemetery road where you can it's been reinforced with steel beams underneath.

They're open to traffic, but not performing as they were originally designed.

They're just two examples of many more in Erie County that need attention.

Senator Dale Volker said, "If nothing is done with those bridges this coming year that's a problem. And it's a real possibility that some of those bridges may have to be shutdown."

Doug May, President of Oakgrove Construction and Chairman of the Fair Appropriations Infrastructure Committee recently expressed concern about deficient bridges during a Senate Transportation Committee hearing in Buffalo.

Douglas May of the Fair Committee said, "The Crown Point Bridge between the New York and Vermont border has just been shut down. It's a major thoroughfare. That has a rating of 3.38. There are 17 bridges in this region, in Western New York that have a at or lower rating. So they're worse."

He also said, "One of them being the Peace Bridge."

The Peace Bridge is self-sustaining, however many other local bridge projects depend on federal and state funding.

In Otober, Governor David Paterson rejected a five year capital program submitted by the State Department of Transportation.

He called it "Simply unaffordable given New York's current fiscal situation."

State Comptroller, Thomas Dinapoli recently disclosed that only one-third of the money in the highway and bridge trust fund has been used to pay for needed improvements.

He said the rest has been used to pay for debt service and state agency operations.

"This is nothing short of highway robbery," Dinapoli said. "This money should be used to keep our roads and bridges safe."

Now the question becomes, how long can we afford to wait?

William Stachowski of the Senate explained, "We can't let the bridges go as long as the bridge at Lake Champlain, where now the people can't get across."

"The first thing we ought to do is stop building new roads and bridges. Stop it. Invest in the maintenance of the existing infrastructure," Sam Hoyt remarked.

The Peace Bridge was inspected over the summer of 2008.

Inspectors found the overall structural condition of the bridge to be generally satisfactory to good.

A spokesman for the Peace Bridge authority told News 4 that there are certain non-critical elements that require some attention but overall, he says, it's clearly a safe bridge.