Highway bridge rating signs could soon become part of Minnesota's transportation landscape.
A bill moving through both state Houses would create three signs to alert drivers to a bridge's sufficiency rating.
"The thought really is to inform the public or else to either have a good debate on how should we inform the public about the condition of our bridges in Minnesota," says State Senator Kathy Saltzman (DFL - Woodbury).
Currently the Hastings Bridge has a sufficiency rating of 38.1 (On a 100 point scale). Under the Bill, a red sign would be posted prior to the bridge.
Under the bill the red sign would be for those highway bridges with a sufficiency rating of 50 or less. Orange signs would be for fracture critical bridges or those with a sufficiency rating of 80 or less. And yellow signs would be used on bridges in line for major repair or replacement.
(Copyright 2008 by KARE. All Rights Reserved.)
