National Highway Bridge Reconstruction and Inspection act of 2008

NATIONAL HIGHWAY BRIDGE RECONSTRUCTION AND INSPECTION ACT OF 2008 -- (House of Representatives - July 23, 2008)

Mr. WALZ of Minnesota. I thank the ranking member and the chairman of the committee, not just for this very good piece of legislation, which I stand in support of and offer this amendment to, but I would like to thank the chairman for his leadership.

Madam Chairman, August 1 of last year was a tragic day for the country but especially for those of us in Minnesota, as you've heard the chairman talk about the stunning nature that a bridge could fall in Minnesota. And I've heard many people afterwards refer to it as a wake-up call for many people. If that's true, one person has never slept on this issue, and that's the chairman. He has spoken about this. He has talked about the need for infrastructure rehabilitation and improvements for decades. And leadership is not reacting to a situation, it's being proactive and anticipating and doing the things necessary. So I thank the chairman for that.

Madam Chairman, we in Minnesota this year are celebrating our sesquicentennial. One hundred and fifty years ago this year, our great State joined this great union. And of all the beautiful places across the expanses of the Land of 10,000 Lakes, the North Star State, the U.S. Postal Service issued their stamp, their commemorative stamp, and it came out on May 17 of this year. This stamp highlights one of the most beautiful parts and one of the most recognizable icons of this country, the winding Mississippi River near Winona, Minnesota, as it separates the Minnesota side from the Wisconsin side.

This bridge in the foreground is the Highway 43 Bridge. This was issued on May 17. And less than 3 weeks later, on the evening of June 3, the Minnesota Department of Transportation issued

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an immediate critical warning on the bridge and closed the bridge to all traffic. Because of the tragedy of August 1 of last year and because of Chairman Oberstar and the changes that happened in the Minnesota Department of Transportation, an accelerated inspection, critical inspection, of these bridges happened, and it was found that the gusset plates had eroded on the Minnesota 43 Bridge. This iconic photo that just came out, it was also eroding in the same manner that led to the collapse of the 35-W Bridge.

This bridge closure was done with caution. It was done with professionalism. It was exactly the right decision to make. But when thousands and thousands of commuters woke up on the morning of June 4, they were stuck in a pretty difficult situation. There are 11,000 vehicles a day that cross this bridge. Over 3,000 people depend on their livelihood for jobs that were literally minutes across, and because of the closure now, they had to travel between 25 and 35 miles to the alternative crossing and then back over again, adding between 100 and 140 miles a day and hours to their commute time. It basically shut down all commerce in one of the larger cities in our district and shut down a major corridor between our two great States of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Other problems were emergency vehicles and response times were dependent on this bridge being open that were no longer there.

And while commuters were dealing with high gas pries, the city was dealing with emergency vehicles, commerce was being shut down to a crawl or to nothing, I do commend the City of Winona, the County, the State officials under Commissioner Sorel for responding as quickly as they possibly could.

What they needed to come up with was they needed to figure out a mitigation plan in very short order. They needed to figure out what they were going to do, determine how long they were going to have to set that up, and this was a situation that fell under very little Federal control and very little Federal help could be offered to the people that were there. And we ended up bringing in ferries and barges and different things, buses, and people worked through it and got it done.

What my amendment says is let's be more proactive on this. This is going to happen in the future. There are going to be emergency shutdowns. We hope that we get to the point where we don't end up inspecting a bridge when we almost see it at a point where it can't be driven on. But the case needs to be we need to proactively plan, especially on these federally aided highways.

This amendment asks the Secretary of Transportation to report to Congress within 15 days of the issuance of a critical finding the results of a bridge closure. The report from the Secretary will include an assessment of the economic impact of the closure as well as the impact on regional transportation and transit patterns. The amendment requires the Secretary to recommend solutions to mitigate these impacts.

The State and the City were able to do this, but it was really a big reach, especially where there were Federal funds involved. It was a Federal aid highway.

So I'm hopeful that we will never use this. I'm hopeful that no other locality will be stuck in this situation. I am pleased to tell you that because within hours of this happening, Chairman Oberstar was on the site, standing on the bridge, inspecting it. The community and the State pulled together, and the bridge is now open for limited traffic again and is getting back on. It's scheduled for repair as we speak and should be finished by the end of summer.

But I thank the chairman and the ranking member, and I would ask that the diligence be done to make sure this doesn't happen to another locale.

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