Now Here Is A Worry,

would you travel either by yourself or with your family,

on a bridge which has been officially classified in the the 2015 National Bridge Inventory as “structurally deficient” or “functionally obsolete,”? the first phrase means that the worst bridges, generally with a score below 50 percent, are classified as “structurally deficient” due to at least one defect that requires attention, the second phrase means bridges that are “functionally obsolete” cannot handle the required traffic needs, well it appears that if you live in America there are more than 130,000 bridges that are in everyday use that fall into one of those categories, the good news is that those nice people at the Washington Post have compiled a interactive web site where you can tap in your state and county, and plan your journey avoiding them, well you would not want to travel on a bridge with the knowledge that it is structurally deficient would you? the data is created locally and compiled by the Federal Highway Administration, in case you are wondering I decided to type in New York County in New York state, this is the result, 10.2% of the bridges in this county are structurally deficient, that is worse than the national average of 9.4%, the score being recorded as this, there are 246 classified bridges in this county, of these 25 are structurally deficient, 182 are functionally obsolete and here is the good news 39 are good, now I am not saying that any of them will fall down at a moments notice, but it is a worry I guess if you have to travel over the same bridge everyday with the knowledge that it is structurally deficient.