The ongoing climate crisis has had devastating impacts on infrastructure across the United States, and bridges around the country are facing significant danger.
What's happening?
A report by The New York Times earlier this month uncovered a dire situation in which experts warned that "extreme heat and increased flooding linked to climate change are accelerating the disintegration of the nation's bridges."
A study published in the journal PLOS ONE determined extreme temperatures could cause failures that require extensive bridge repairs and closures by 2040 and that one in four steel bridges in the U.S. will collapse by 2050 if things don't change.
"We have a bridge crisis that is specifically tied to extreme weather events," Paul Chinowsky, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder who researches the effects of climate change on infrastructure, told the Times. "These are not things that would happen under normal climate circumstances. These are not things that we've ever seen at this rate."
Most bridges across the country were designed and built decades ago, so the materials are not capable of withstanding severe temperatures and have weakened over time.
"It's getting so hot that the pieces that hold the concrete and steel, those bridges can literally fall apart like Tinkertoys," Chinowsky added.
In addition to the extreme heat, heavy precipitation caused by the rising global temperature has also played a factor in the deterioration of the nation's bridges. Another study explained the issue of "bridge scour," which is "the erosion of soil sediment around bridge foundations that is the leading cause of bridge failure in the United States, studies show," per the Times.
Why is this important?
Extreme weather events, such as excessive heat waves and increased flooding, have only worsened as a result of the ongoing climate crisis. Using dirty energy sources that produce planet-heating pollution has further exacerbated the problem, and bridges and the rest of our infrastructure are paying a steep price.
The damage to the nation's bridges has already caused closures that have proved costly.
For example, after the Tex Wash Bridge section of Interstate 10 near the California-Arizona border collapsed in 2015, the American Transportation Research Institute determined that closures added a whopping $2.5 million per day to trucking costs because of additional fuel needs and extensive delays. Per the Times, engineers warned that bridge closures like this "are projected to increase significantly across the country over the coming decade."
Dan Murray, senior vice president of ATRI, explained to the Times the inconvenience and financial losses that bridge closures can cause.
"With a lot of these bridge closures, trucks have to reroute far more than normal. It adds anywhere from 15 to 100 miles per trip, when a trucking trip typically costs about $91 per hour," Murray said. "And it becomes very inflationary. We're buying the same goods and the unexpected costs get passed on to consumers."
What's being done about this?
The Biden administration has made an effort to address this issue. According to the Times, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law signed in 2021 "allotted $110 billion for repair and construction of roads, bridges and other major transportation projects."
A pioneering program called PROTECT was included in the law and committed $7.3 billion to be divided among states to help facilities and highways withstand extreme weather. Another $1.4 billion is also available in competitive grants.
An estimated 100 bridges have deteriorated in Vermont over the past two years because of heavy rainfall and extreme heat, per the Times, so the state plans to rebuild them with deeper foundations and materials that can withstand the changing climate.
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