As bridges across the state age, an advocacy group representing some Illinois farmers says investing in their maintenance or repair is crucial for economic success.
The Bloomington-based Illinois Soybean Association [ISA] recently released a cost-benefit analysis that suggests for every dollar invested into bridge repairs or maintenance statewide, the state could see a return of somewhere between $3 and $4.97.
It's one argument the group makes in support of additional investments in bridge infrastructure — particularly in rural areas — though, as ISA market director Todd Main noted, the main benefit is continued economic success in agriculture, one of the state's leading industries.
"Part of our thinking on this is that we don't just want to be looking at this with our hand out, complaining about how we don't have enough money," Main said. "We wanted to look at it and see what kind of a return we would get on these investments. This is a smart investment for our state to make. It's a smart way for us to invest in our rural economics and the things that will provide benefits for the next generation."
The study excludes bridges in the Chicago area and interstate bridges, focusing on 11,275 of the state's 26,000-plus bridges — many of which were documented as being in "fair or worse" condition — part of a maintenance and repair backlog in smaller or more rural municipalities.
According to the study, the economic crunch of rural bridge maintenance and repair is felt most frequently at the local level where funding may be disproportionately scarce compared with the need: The Illinois Department of Transportation is responsible for around 28% of all bridges in the state, with local governments, including townships, picking up the rest.
"Those organizations just don't have the resources that it requires. There were cases where they're getting $20,000 in money to fix a bridge a year and it probably cost $400,000 just to rehabilitate a bridge," Main said. "So, we just keep falling further and further behind — and that's why we wanted to call attention to this issue. As a state, we need to get serious about this."
It's not just the return on the state dollar that the ISA is interested in, of course: There's the potential impact on farmers. Main said as rural bridges fall into disrepair, sometimes requiring lengthy closures and for drivers to find alternative routes, farmers may feel that impact in their wallet.
"There's increased mileage, there's increased fuel costs and time, if you have to route around locations. There's also increased public safety, because you've got more vehicle miles driven, and so there's going to be more accidents just as a cause," said Main.
"One of the things that that we learned over the course of the study, and one of the findings, was that there's a significant cost that goes into not repairing those bridges and there's a significant benefit that comes from making the investments."
Main said the ISA is focused on the issue now in anticipation of a shifting agricultural marketplace. He said yields are expected to increase anywhere from 15% to 30% over the next two decades, and where soybeans in particular are shipped also is likely to change — shifting from China to India and other parts of Southeast Asia.
"What we need to do as a state is make sure that we have a transportation system that can get the increase in our production to where it needs to go, but also the new places it needs to go," Main said. "We as a state need to make sure that we retain our competitive advantage in the future, in the global marketplace, and to do that, we've got to have a transportation system that protects that."
Figuring out how to get required funding allocated where it needs to will be the next challenge, he said. While the study analyzed the cost-benefit scenarios of rural bridge maintenance and repairs, it did not draw conclusions on how to best fund that work.
"It's going to take a solution that goes over several years, probably a decade. So, we need to start and we need to start today," Main said.
