Wednesday, April 10, 2002

Levinson Announces Plans for Bridge Management System

County Executive Dennis Levinson has announced plans for the development of a computerized bridge management system that will enable the county to more accurately evaluate its bridge infrastructure and appropriate funding for the most needy projects. There are currently 168 bridges in the county's inventory.

"A bridge management system is an invaluable tool for determining how to best allocate funding and will inevitably minimize the amount of funding necessary to maintain our total bridge infrastructure," stated Levinson. "It will also help us ensure the safety of our bridges by evaluating their current condition and rating them according to need."

According to Levinson, the system will allow the county to inventory, classify, evaluate and rate bridges for repairs or replacement according to their needs. At the present time these efforts are concentrated on the county's 60 major bridges. The new system would be integrated into the county's Geographic Information System to establish a database capable of providing reports that prioritize and provide cost estimates for bridge repair or replacement, among other things.

The Board of Freeholders has approved a $471,050 contract for a consultant to develop and help implement this system. The services to be provided include: inspecting and rating 108 non-major bridges; locating all 168 bridges using the Global Positioning System technology; entering data into new computer database; training county personnel to use new system and equipment; and three years of software support.

For more information, please contact Joe Maher, Department Head, Regional Planning and Economic Development, at (609) 645-5898.

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