Wis. to spend federal money on rural bridge work
TOWN OF ARENA, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin will use federal stimulus money to repair or replace dozens of little-used, rural bridges this year.
A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel analysis found that most of the bridges approved for federally-funded repairs carry fewer than 1,000 vehicles a day. Many carry far less.
The River Road Bridge in northeast Iowa County handles about 10 cars a day. The Town of Arena will get about $426,000 in stimulus money to replace it this summer.
The Journal Sentinel reports that the 37 bridges scheduled for repair or replacement in the first round of federal stimulus funding average about 570 vehicles per day.
Meanwhile, larger bridges weren't eligible for the first round of federal money because plans and permits weren't complete.
Mar 30, 2009 at 6:47 p.m.
Suggest removal
Just because it doesn't carry 10,000 cars a day does not mean it's not important.
Mar 30, 2009 at 3:51 p.m.
Suggest removal
Hmm, well, these were all replacements that were already in the pipeline and had paperwork complete, but had not received federal/state funding in the last 2 or 3 years. They would have been done eventually anyway, so what this does is speed up the time when other projects will get money.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/4...
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I'm not sure if the DOT actually has traffic guidelines calling for bridge end-of-life removal, or what (projected) level of traffic would be required to build a new bridge. But it's much less expensive to repair an existing bridge than to build a new one.
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