Your Data : Bridges on the Mend

Open government data lets Oklahomans explore facts about their state, including multi-year trends that affect the daily lives of citizens.

For example, The Oklahoma Department of Transportation is among the agencies that provide statistics to, and one ODOT dataset pertains to bridges judged to be structurally deficient.

Bridges carry traffic over features such as other roads, rivers, lakes and railroads. Any bridge that is structurally deficient represents a part of the transportation network that may have a detrimental impact on Oklahoma commerce, job creation, economic growth and the safety of our citizens.

There are over 6,800 bridges in the state. Bridges are inspected at least every 2 years in order to determine the condition of each bridge in the system. The number of structurally deficient bridges is tracked in order to understand the condition of the overall transportation system.

Each structurally deficient bridge represents a weak link in this system, but year-over-year numbers indicate that ODOT is steadily making progress toward ensuring the safety of all Oklahoma bridges, with the total number of deficient bridges dropping from 706 in 2011, to 468 in 2014, and heading to a 2017 goal of well under 300.

ODOT is committed to reducing the number of structurally deficient bridges in the system. The department’s current 8-year Construction Work Plan includes improvement on all of the known structurally deficient bridges. In addition, within the Asset Preservation Plan, the department has instituted a bridge-specific maintenance program designed to be flexible and reactive to bridge deterioration and addresses those bridges that are at risk of becoming structurally deficient. This program is funded at approximately $40 million each year.

Find more information at OKStateStat.