Clad in a neon yellow vest and clashing orange helmet, Jeff Anderson scraped giant flakes of rusting steel and green paint from the underbelly of the Bronco Arch Bridge.Balanced in an extended cherry picker, he documented corrosion on a digital camera during a Colorado Department of Transportation inspection Thursday. The inspection wasn't on Anderson's schedule for the day, but CDOT bumped it up to give reporters a close look at Colorado's bridges after a bridge collapse in Minneapolis on Wednesday.
Rated by CDOT as the 10th- worst bridge in the Denver area, the I-25 Broncos Arch Bridge extends over the South Platte River near the Walnut Street viaduct, sandwiched between Invesco Field at Mile High and Elitch Garden's Twister II roller coaster.
Still, "It's safe," said Karen Mondragon, CDOT bridge inspections coordinator. "If we didn't feel it was safe, we would close it down. It needs help, obviously, but we'll keep an eye on it."
Colorful graffiti could be seen from the pedestrian trail beneath the bridge, which was built in 1951 and boasts a mile of girders. One of the few legible messages reads "rust."
"The corrosion definitely has us nervous enough that they've put it on a six-month (inspection) frequency and they are looking at replacing it," said Jeff Anderson, CDOT inspections program manager. Colorado bridges are typically on a two-year inspection rotation. "What we did today is just an inspection of some of the repairs that we've done in the past."
Those repairs include patching holes in rusting beams, adding steel support poles to existing concrete columns and resting wood between beams to catch falling chunks of concrete.
Bob Marusin, CDOT director of operations, said that most of the estimated $22 million needed to replaced the Bronco Arch bridge has been secured.
For Mondragon, Wednesday's tragic events served as a reminder of the importance of her job.
"I hope to God we never have to deal with anything like that because I'd never want that on my conscience, that I might have missed something and caused the death of somebody. So we just keep being diligent and stay out there and do our jobs the best we can."
Bridges with troubles
The Rocky reviewed a 2006 federal database on the condition of 8,326 bridges in Colorado:
1,399 or 16.8 percent were deficient. Of those, 575 had structural problems and 824 were "functionally obsolete," generally because they could not handle rising traffic volumes. Neither indicates the bridges are necessarily unsafe, according to the Federal Highway Administration rating system.
385 or 22.2 percent of the 1,736 rated bridges in the metro area had deficiencies. About two-thirds of those were functionally obsolete.
96 Denver bridges are functionally obsolete - the highest number in the state. Second is Larimer County, 92, followed by El Paso County, 67.
46 El Paso County bridges are structurally deficient, a state high, followed by Adams and Las Animas counties, with 37 each.
craigk@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5618
