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OGDEN — After the fatal bridge collapse in Baltimore, Utahns may wonder about the integrity of the infrastructure here in Utah.
The Utah Department of Transportation is assuring Utahns that safety is the top priority.
"We have excellent bridges here in Utah," said UDOT spokesperson Mitch Shaw. "If we ever had a bridge that we suspected was not safe for the traveling public, we'd shut it down immediately."
In 2022, Utah's bridges were ranked as the best maintained in the nation, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highways Administration.
Of course, the infrastructure isn't perfect.
With more than 3,000 bridges throughout the state, Utah currently has 138 bridges in need of repair, with 75 bridges, or 2.4% of all of Utah's bridges, classified as "structurally deficient," according to the National Bridge Inventory. The National Bridge Inventory estimates the cost to repair all the bridges in the state would be around $168 million.
Shaw said while the term "structurally deficient" may sound alarming, it doesn't mean a bridge is unsafe, just that there could be some maintenance issues they need to monitor.
"If there's a bridge that has any sort of hint of anything wrong with it, we go into immediate action," he said.
Shaw emphasized their crews do thorough routine inspections to make sure the bridges are all up to code.
While we may not be at risk for a collapse like what happened in Baltimore, Utah still has a high number of freight vehicles traveling on its roads. Just last year, a truck carrying a crane ran into a bridge on I-215, but the bridge remained intact, with minimal damage.
"They're designed for earthquakes, for impacts from large vehicles," Shaw said. "Our bridges and our road infrastructure is as safe as it can possibly be."
