fb-pixel Skip to main content

Map: Here are the 473 bridges in ‘poor’ condition in Mass.

The collapse of a highway bridge in Genoa, Italy, has left at least 39 people dead, and there’s no doubt it has raised questions about the condition of bridges elsewhere.

In Massachusetts, 473 bridges, or about 9 percent of the statewide total, were rated in “poor” condition in recent years, based on national standards.

Another 3,316 bridges were determined to be in “fair condition,” and the remaining 1,400 were in “good” condition, federal data show.

A bridge is rated “poor” if inspectors rate one of four key components — either its deck, superstructure, substructure, or culvert — as earning 4 or less on a 10-point scale.

Advertisement



Inspectors also give grades in other categories for each bridge to help transportation officials prioritize repair and replacement projects.

One standard, called the sufficiency rating, is calculated for each bridge and provides a fairly comprehensive look at its overall status. The measure uses a detailed formula that considers the structure’s condition, functionality, and importance, giving it a score from zero, the worst possible, to 100.

The map below shows the location of each “poor” bridge statewide, and if you click on each dot, it will show the name of the bridge and next to it a numerical value of its sufficiency rating.

Each dot also shows the year the bridge was last inspected. The federal data is from 2017, but because some bridges aren’t inspected each year, the condition of the bridge today may be better or worse than available records and the map below indicate.


Matt Rocheleau can be reached at matthew.rocheleau@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @mrochele.