EYEWITNESS NEWS (WBRE/WYOU) — Bridges have been making headlines after the collapse of the Baltimore Key Bridge just a few weeks ago.
According to officials from PennDOT, around 15% of state-owned bridges in Luzerne County are in poor condition.
They say bridges are inspected every two years or more, depending on the health of the structure.
"So one of the federal requirements and state requirements is that every two years, a bridge gets an in-depth safety inspection," said Richard Roman district executive, PennDOT District 4.
Roman says that through these inspections, PennDOT evaluates the health and safety of its bridges, giving them a grade of poor, fair, or good.
Meal center fundraiser held in Peckville
"And then from those reports we see how the bridge is aging, how it's functioning," said Roman.
PennDOT will then determine what work needs to be done. They're responsible for any state-owned bridges over eight feet in length.
"Local governments and municipalities that own bridges have to inspect those as well. We work with them to oversee that all bridges that see traffic or are over traffic, or over some type of transportation, are inspected, federal state and local bridges," explained Roman.
Roman says that although a bridge may qualify as poor, depending on the severity of its condition, it could remain untouched for years.
"The planning process as it relates to bridges is also very important because you can't just say let's work on that bridge next year because it takes time. Getting the permits, getting plans in place, getting all of the approvals that you need sometimes take years," continued Roman.
He says that maintaining the health and safety of bridges is a top priority for PennDOT.
"We are on the side of conservative kind of cautious engineering because we don't wanna have any issues that we've been seeing in the media lately with down in Baltimore and things out in Pittsburgh that happened over the years, you know we don't wanna see that anywhere especially here in northeast PA," stated Roman.
PennDOT has a site where you can see the condition of bridges county by county.
