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St. Charles Route 64 Bridge Called 'Functionally Obsolete'
Part 2 of series: St. Charles' Main Street bridge is plenty safe structurally, but a national report hints that it might have more traffic than it can handle.
St. Charles' Main Street/Route 64 bridge over the Fox River is safe but “functionally obsolete,” according to a report by Transportation for America. A functionally obsolete bridge is not unsafe in any way. In fact, the St. Charles Route 64 bridge earns comparatively high marks for safety: an 8 for its deck and superstructure, and a 7 for its substructure. The Transportation for America report points out that "functinally obsolete" means the bridge “has older design features not built to current standards.” For example, the bridge might not be wide enough or high enough to accommodate state expectations for traffic volumes for vehicle weights and sizes. Width likely is the issue on the Main Street bridge, where average traffic volumes of …
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MattG
2:02 pm on Saturday, February 23, 2013
Since this the second article about bridges, I wanted to weigh in as a civil engineer. "Functionally Obsolete" generally means very little about the actual condition of the bridge. If a bridge has more traffic volume than a typical bridge of it's size, then it is graded down as functionally obsolete. There may be a number of other criteria that lead it to be listed as functionally obsolete. In … more ›