JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Two of Jacksonville's main bridges into downtown are considered functionally obsolete by the Florida Department of Transportation.
DOT engineers inspected every bridge in the state and determined that nearly a dozen Duval County overpasses need immediate attention.
Ten were deemed structurally deficient, and the John E. Mathews Bridge and the John Alsop Bridge (Main Street) were listed as functionally obsolete, which means they are not up to current standards.
The functionally obsolete designation does not mean that the bridges are unsafe or structurally unsound.
The status could be given to a bridge that doesn't have enough lanes for its traffic flow, has a drawbridge on a congested highway, does not have space for emergency shoulders or other similar issues.
The Main Street Bridge, which was built in 1941 and has been renovated a dozen times, was given a 47.4 sufficiency rating (out of 100) but had an 87 health rating. The Mathews Bridge had a 44.1 SR and an 87.75 HR.
READ: Florida DOT Bridge Information Report
Driver Clay Troyer said he is worried about the latest findings on the bridges.
“I mean, the things that have happened with boats hitting them and holes falling in, we have to keep up with them and the traffic and the amount of people we have crossing them,” Troyer said.
DOT workers will be rebuilding all the mechanical inner workings of the Main Street Bridge in the spring.
“I have family, grandkids, and I don’t want anything happening to them when they cross those bridges,” Troyer said.
Farther north on Lem Turner Road, the Ray Green Bridge over the Trout River presents a more pressing problem, according to the DOT. The bridge has been rated structurally deficient, according to engineers, meaning inspections will increase ahead of the bridge being rebuilt one day.
“It’s scary,” driver George Mixson said. “There's a lot of people that travel this bridge that have to go across this bridge. It’s very important that this bridge be restored.”
The city's other structurally deficient bridges include:
- U.S. 17 northbound over the Broward River
- I-95 at Hendricks and Kings Road
- I-10 westbound over the CSX rail yard
- Service road over the San Pablo River
- Lane Avenue bridge that crosses Wills Branch
- Bridge on I-95 crossing the Nassau River
DOT officials couldn’t give specific details as to what is wrong with the bridges because of new Homeland Security regulations that require that information remain private.
DOT engineers said they rate the city's nearly 600 bridges to secure the funding to fix them.
Other bridges of note in the DOT report were the Napoleon Broward Bridge (Dames Point), which had an 82.4 SR and a 94 in health, the Fuller Warren (80 SR/99.15 HR), the St. Elmo Acosta Bridge (94 SR/77 HR) and the Henry H. Buckman Bridge, which was in the 90s for both sufficiency and health, and the Isaiah D. Hart Bridge, which had a 43.8 SR but was given a 92.52 health rating.