Louisiana ranks ninth in the country for structurally deficient rural bridges. That's the finding of the transportation research group TRIP. Their report finds 15-percent of rural bridges in Louisiana need to be repaired or replaced. State Transportation Secretary Shawn Wilson says that’s not surprising, as he just had to close a bridge in Vernon Parish.

Wilson says what makes the problem worse is that DOTD doesn’t have the money to build new bridges, we can only repair aging bridges, and that’s just a temporary fix.

Here's the list of states:

BAD BRIDGES
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Wilson says there’s about 5,000 rural bridges in Louisiana that are not owned by the state. He says many times, they only work on 15 to 20 of those bridges a year because there’s not enough revenue to cover the cost of necessary maintenance.

Our roads are not in much better shape. The report says 18% of rural Louisiana roads are in poor conditions. This puts us at 17th worst in the country.

 

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