By Lola Oliverio
When driving, most of us take our safety for granted. We fail to think about the labor that goes into keeping our highways, streetlamps and bridges up to par with statewide safety standards, and what happens when this maintenance proves difficult to source.
Bridge maintenance and replacement in a state as large as North Carolina is an incredibly involved, expensive process, and the North Carolina Department of Transportation is responsible for over 18,000 bridges or bridge-like structures. In 2020, it was estimated that, to replace or repair all bridges in poor condition throughout the state, it would cost nearly $3 million.
The bridge maintenance industry in North Carolina is small but mighty — Billy Mueller, the underwater bridge inspection supervisor for the NCDOT, has only four teams of three underwater inspectors who examine bridges in all 100 counties. He said that teams typically only spend two or three days each month in the office, with the rest spent in the field — wading, diving and swimming to make sure bridges are structurally sound underwater.
Kevin Harris, an engineer with NCDOT Division 1 — which covers part of northeastern North Carolina — said that a lot of his team’s maintenance work is completed based on need. He said that because the district is so large, teams must consult inspection data to figure out which bridges are in the most urgent need of repair.
“When we are covering 14 counties, it’s a very large geographical area. We’ve got four crews — four bridge maintenance crews to cover 14 counties. So it’s hard to be everywhere at once,” Harris said. “So that’s why maybe sometimes there may be a delay.”
Brock Harrison, the NCDOT Division 1 maintenance engineer, said that money is another inhibiting factor when it comes to repairing and maintaining bridges throughout the state. He said bridge maintenance crews and counties must find a happy medium between budget and need.
“Like I said, if there was plenty of money, you’d be riding on brand new bridges all the time,” he said. “But your taxes would be a lot higher.”
Bridges in rural communities
North Carolina has the second-largest rural population across the country, with around one-third of citizens living in rural areas. Only 22 of North Carolina’s 100 counties are considered urban, according to the North Carolina Rural Center.
Nearly all of western North Carolina falls within this rural area, as does almost all of eastern North Carolina. Many of the state’s counties with the highest percentage of bridges in poor condition fall within these regions.
However, a 2024 study by the United States Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics found that 6.8% of North Carolina’s bridges in rural areas were in poor condition. This is slightly lower than the national average, which sits at 6.9%, and the state ranks as having the 20th-highest percentage of rural bridges in poor conditions.
Dalton Bailey, the research and data manager at the North Carolina Rural Center, said that data on rural bridge conditions can be hard to come by.
“It’s a tough thing to measure for sure. Stuff like, you know, broadband internet connection, we have data for that,” he said. “There’s good housing data for the most part, but like, roads and bridges, for whatever reason — it’s kind of a challenge.”
Bailey said that it can be more costly to replace and repair bridges in rural areas because they may need to outsource — and accommodate — construction teams from other parts of the state.
“If you have a big bridge repair project or something like that, somewhere like Raleigh, somewhere like Charlotte, they probably have construction firms in that community that can address that stuff,” he said. “But if you’re in Robeson County or Madison County, or any of these communities, is there a firm there that can handle this? And if not, where do you go to get that? And how much more does that cost you? Because now not only are you having to pay for this project, but you’re also having to get folks from somewhere else to come, basically stay in that community for a little while.”
Another disadvantage rural areas face is a lack of tax money. Bailey said that the more densely populated an area is, the more tax money they generate and are able to spend on things like infrastructure and bridge upkeep.
“It’s easier to do in Wake County when you have, like, these millions of people that are feeding into your tax base,” he said. “In eastern North Carolina or western North Carolina, where the counties are sometimes bigger and sometimes — depending on where you are at — you might need a bigger bridge or something than, like, in our major urban areas, you don’t have that tax base to really address that.”
Geographical challenges
In addition to rurality, both western and eastern North Carolina have unique climatological challenges when it comes to the upkeep and maintenance of bridge infrastructure.
In eastern North Carolina, sand overwash from severe weather can disrupt travel and rapidly degrade bridges along roads like N.C. 12, which connects many of the state’s barrier islands. Being near the sea also expedites erosion, leading to more frequent bridge repairs.
“Any metal is going to corrode faster out there with the salty air and spray and everything,” Mueller said.
In western North Carolina, damage from landslides and floods pose a risk to bridge infrastructure, as most recently seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
When Hurricane Helene hit western North Carolina in September of 2024, over 800 state-maintained bridges were destroyed.
“It was just disaster, really,” Mueller said. “I mean, a lot of the bridges were just gone. There wasn’t much to inspect or try to salvage.”
Over a year later, teams are still working to repair and replace state-maintained bridges washed away from the storm, and the North Carolina Department of Public Safety launched a program to help property owners repair their private bridges across the western part of the state. The program prioritizes roads and bridges that serve as the sole access for emergency vehicles or provide access to numerous residential homes or commercial facilities.
Overall, North Carolina’s bridge inspectors aim to provide safety and reliability. Though it can be challenging to allocate resources to rural areas, Harris said that the NCDOT maintains a high threshold for bridge safety. He said that, at the end of the day, nobody is willingly neglecting any kind of highway or bridge, and that if he and his fellow bridge inspectors would not carry their own children on the bridge, they would not let the public on it. “I would say there’s a lot of good men and women that are in this state and across the country, they keep our infrastructure safe for the traveling public because that’s our No. 1 goal, is to have everyone driving down the roadway make it home safely,” Harris said.
