Mapping the Country's Bridge Maintenance Crisis

The Washington Post has published a large, interactive feature on the state of the nation's bridges, mapping the locations of the "structurally deficient" and "functionally obsolete" bridges around the United States. The interactive map zooms to the county level, automatically if you allow the site access to your location.

At this writing, for instance, I'm in Contra Costa County, California, where the interactive feature reports that there are 46 structurally deficient bridges, 89 functionally obsolete bridges, and 458 bridges in good condition. Along side the custom report on the county, the feature offers a geo-tagged satellite view of all the deficient and obsolete bridges around the region.

Denise Lu and Dan Keting supplement the interactive features with an article introducing the key terms and data that drive the interactive map. The article concludes by focusing on a sample of counties with high rates of structurally deficient bridges, namely Suffolk County, Massachusetts; Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania; and Nemaha County, Nebraska.