According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, a total of 57 Philadelphia-area bridges are in bad shape. -Photo courtesy of GPTMC image:33706:0::0

digphilly.com reports that since the Aug.1 bridge collapse in Minnesota, state and federal officials have been inspecting bridges all over the country. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, a total of 57 Philadelphia-area bridges are as bad or worse than the Minnesota bridge that collapsed killing 13 people.

Each of the 57 local bridges support over 25,000 vehicles a day. Some hold up as many as 160,000 vehicles daily. Pennsylvania and New Jersey officials claim that these bridges are still safe, but they do acknowledge that the Minnesota I-35W bridges were deemed safe as well before the collapse.

Inspectors give ratings on a scale of 0-to-100. The Minnesota bridge had been given a sufficiency rating of 50. The lowest-rated bridge in Philadelphia is the DeKalb Pike bridge. The bridge got a rating of 3 out of 100. A PennDOT official told the Inquirer that, “It’s bad but it’s safe.”

The news does not get any better. Pennsylvania has the most structurally deficient bridges in the nation. Nearly 6,000.

Of course, it is a nationwide problem. But strides must be made to start fixing some of these bridges before it becomes a national crisis.