News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Many counties across Tennessee are struggling to maintain local bridges after state funding dried up.
Fentress Highway Superintendent Ryan Reed said T-DOT used to pay for one hundred percent of the repairs for any bridge eligible for its High Priority Bridge Replacement Program. Reed said that support has gone away and it has fallen on counties to fix or replace those bridges without any other ways to pay for them.
“Fentress County only gets $58,000 a year for bridge replacement,” Reed said. “So as you know, you know, the average cost of bridge replacement for myself is upward, close to a million dollars. Anywhere from $750,000 to $1.3 million.”
Engineering Project Manager Arran Addington said the combination of inflation and spending has left T-DOT with too little funding to continue supporting the bridge program. Addington said they are on track for critical bridges to be closed across the state if they cannot find a way to obtain more money.
“If this additional funding does not come down the pike here eventually, roads are going to get closed,” Addington said. “And they’re going to get closed for a long period of time. And this is going to cut off communities. This is going to divide counties.”
Representative Kelly Keisling said they all recently met with T-DOT to discuss the issue and they determined that they should try to work with Governor Bill Lee to establish a reoccurring fund for twenty to thirty million dollars to pay for bridges each year.
“It has to be explored further,” Keisling said. “There’s nothing absolute at the moment, no, not at all. But of course the governor is just absolutely bombarded from all his departments and requests.”
Keisling said the issue is especially bad in rural counties where the highway departments are often funded by fuel tax revenue alone.
“There’s some county commissions that provide additional funding for their highway departments,” Keisling said. “But again those are counties that are located, that have a considerable amount of sales tax revenue. Particularly those like Putnam on I-40, like Campbell County on I-75 with truck stops up, you know, there.”
Addington said most counties get $50,000 per year for bridges through state aid. He said that is not nearly enough to meet their needs and there are no other options for them to pursue.
“Ten million dollars, that equals two, maybe three bigger bridges a year across the state,” Addington said. “I spoke with one county out in East Tennessee and they’ve got a four million dollar bridge project and TDOT just closed the bridge on them. And they don’t have any recourse, like they don’t have any way to replace that bridge. And every year it’s just getting worse.”
Reed said they would have to refer to T-DOT’s bridge inspection lists to determine which bridges would be addressed first if additional funding gets approved.
