Owners of various bridges are responsible for their upkeep. I think the inspectors themselves have a tremendous amount of experience, and they are very competent in what they do,'' said Richard Dillman, an associate civil engineer with the DOT's Region 8 office in the Town of Poughkeepsie. Region 8 has three in-house teams of two inspectors and pays a consultant to deliver another three teams. New York has a lot of bridges and a lot of older bridges,'' said David Densmore, the director of bridge technology with the Federal Highway Administration. The average age of the 25 bridges with the lowest ratings in Ulster and Dutchess counties is 67 years, the Journal found.
Weather is also a factor, experts say.
If the same bridge built in New York is built in Florida, you get twice the life out of it in Florida,'' said Jim Donahue, commissioner of Ulster County's Department of Public Works. The Federal Highway Administration keeps tabs on the number of deficient bridges in each state, collecting data and working with various state transportation departments to reduce those figures. Densmore said national bridge inspection standards were implemented in the mid-1970s, requiring bridges to be inspected every two years. The standards also require the states to keep an inventory of bridge conditions. That list is updated annually.