New York City Department of
Transportation
Bridge and Roadway
Division:
Improvements Needed in Emergency Bridge Repair Program
New York
City roadways include 859 bridges, which must be inspected at
least once every two years.
When an inspector identifies a hazardous condition on a bridge,
the Department is required to
repair the bridge within a certain amount of time. At the time
of our audit, about half of
New York City's bridges required substantial rehabilitation or
repair.
We examined the New York City Department of Transportation's
efforts to repair and
rehabilitate bridges and found that only 37 percent of the
hazardous conditions identified
during our audit period were repaired within the required time
frames. Moreover, many of
the repairs, when made, were temporary in nature and did not
address the underlying
problems. When such repairs are delayed, hazardous conditions
can deteriorate further and
become even more hazardous. We determined that some of the
unrepaired bridges had, in
fact, deteriorated. We recommend that Department officials
develop a plan to ensure that
bridges are repaired in a timely manner.
For a complete copy of Report 96-N-14 click here.
For a copy of the associated follow-up report click here.