Can we really afford to paint our bridges? Based on experience in Allegheny County, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, we cannot afford NOT to paint our bridges.

Because of an ambiguous bridge transfer act which transferred the maintenance responsibility from the County of Allegheny to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, many major bridges in the Pittsburgh area were left unpainted and unmaintained for well over 20 - 25 years. This occurred at the time when we just began to salt our roads and bridges.

Prior to our recent round of painting, the Department's paint cycle was approximately seven years. We have records proving that when a bridge misses one cycle of painting, a structural steel repair takes place or should take place. When one misses two cycles of painting, a major rehabilitation must take place. When three cycles are missed, there is a good possibility that the bridge will have to be demolished and replaced. This has occurred all over Allegheny County.

The County has responsibility for over 400 bridges and culverts, 140 of which are over 20 feet in length, but many of them are between 1000 and 3000 feet long. This poses a major problem in performing all the design, construction and cleaning and painting projects at the same time. We resolved it by the use of consultants. We hired a number of bridge consultants to inspect the bridges with the charge to prepare plans and specifications for a cleaning and painting project to meet the needs of a particular bridge. This brought about a number of changes, one of which is that we tried a variety of new paint systems. The change also included the construction surveillance and administration of these painting projects by these same engineering consultants. This also brought about a change in our painting contractors.

Subject
Commercial blast cleaning, Costs, Consultants, Metals, Steel, Engineering, Construction, Contractors, Bridges, Urethane, Alkyds, Paints, Cleaning
© 1984 Association for Materials Protection and Performance (AMPP). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of AMPP. Positions and opinions advanced in this work are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of AMPP. Responsibility for the content of the work lies solely with the author(s).
1984
Association for Materials Protection and Performance (AMPP)
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