A new report from Snohomish County shows that more than a dozen bridges need serious repairs or replacement.
According to the report, when conducting annual inspections, county engineers found 19 bridges in poor condition.
To keep bridges open while the county waits for funding to repair them, lane and weight limits have been added. However, despite these restrictions, county officials say the bridges are still safe to drive over.
“If the bridge is open, then it’s safe to cross,” Tim Tipton, County Bridge Engineer, said.
“Poor condition simply means that after an inspection, our country’s bridge inspectors found there was a structural element that was deteriorated or had a lower load-carrying capacity. There’s never enough money to go around, and there are a lot of projects out there.” capacity than it was originally designed for,” Tipton said,
Half a dozen of those 19 poorly rated bridges are smaller “short span” structures that are expected to be paid for with state or county funding. Of the 13 larger bridges that qualify for federal dollars, only the Pilchuck Creek has received that funding.
“The way the federal bridge program works is they come out with a call for projects, and we have to apply for that funding, and they award it to a specific project,” Doug McCormick, Snohomish County Deputy Director and County Engineer, said.
According to McCormick, the competition for federal dollars is fierce. “Well, there’s never enough money to go around, and there are a lot of projects out there.”
Still, Tipton says the county is making progress.
“We are continuously doing maintenance on our bridges. We probably do around a dozen to twenty larger maintenance projects a year.”
He said that work includes refurbishing or replacing one or two bridges every year, out of more than 200 bridges in unincorporated Snohomish County.
According to Tipton, the county also plans to apply for more federal funding.
The Pilchuck Creek Bridge, the only bridge in the county that has received federal funding for repairs, is scheduled to be replaced by the summer of 2028.
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