Bad Bridge Maps

When you are doing your route planning you may find yourself with the choice to cross a bridge or not. Perhaps you have heard about the thousands of deficient bridges scattered across the nation and wondered whether the bridge you are choosing to cross or avoid is one of them. Well, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics has a map showing the locations of the structurally deficient bridges on the National Highway System. You select the state you are interested in. Then you can choose to see a map for that entire state or for one of the individual congressional districts it contains. Each deficient bridge is marked with a green dot. For example, the map for Idaho is shown below. Also available below the image is a table of data giving the bridge's label and structure id number as well as the highway it is on and a rough description of where it is along that highway.


Being paranoid is never a good idea, and going far out of your way to avoid a bad bridge could cost you a lot of extra gas. But if you are the cautious type and have an easily avoided bad bridge on your commute (or otherwise well beaten path) you could choose to go another route.