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spending per mile of about $18,000 on the city financed city street system in larger cities and about <br />$10,000 per mile on the city funded street system in the smaller cities. <br /> <br />Mn/DOT reports show that the MSA system is aging. One such indicator shows that the percentage of <br />MSA surface over 40 years old has increased from 62.4 percent in 1998 to about 64.4 percent in 2001. <br />Because spending per mile is roughly twice as high on the MSA system compared to the locally <br />financed system in large cities, and over 3 times as high as the spending per mite on the city streets in <br />smaller (non-MSA eligible cities), it is fair to conclude that the city financed street systems in most <br />areas are aging faster than the MSA system roadways. <br /> <br />City Bridges <br />Bridges are a critical component of the state's transportation infrastructure. A single deficient bridge <br />can restrict access, create unsafe situations, and result in costly detours. <br /> <br /> Several factors are contributing to increasing demands on Minnesota's bridges. As roadways are <br /> reconstructed to carry heavier loads, bridges become less capable of maintaining the overall level of <br /> traffic on the transportation system. The aging of the local bridge infrastructure, combined with <br /> increased freight loads and higher levels of traffic, are exacerbating the rate of deterioration of the <br />· bridges on local roadways. Finding adequate resources to fund local bridge repair and replacement is <br /> a growing challenge for state and local governments striving to meet the needs and expectations of <br /> Minnesota roadway users. <br /> <br />Minnesota cities own over 1,200 bridges on the Municipal State Aid system and their municipal street <br />systems. Although this represents a modest share of the total number of bridges in Minnesota, (6.27% <br />of the total, or 7.40% of those over 100 feet in length) the fact remains that these bridges are a critical <br />element of the transportation network in Minnesota cities. <br /> <br />Slow but steady progress has been made in reducing the number of deficient bridges on the local roads <br />system. In recent years, for every existing bridge that has been added to the list of deficient structures, <br /> <br />roughly two deficient <br />bridges have been <br />replaced and thereby <br />removed from the list. <br />Figure 18 shows the <br />state's progress at <br />reducing the number of <br />deficient total local <br />bridges, including city, <br />county, and township <br />bridges since 1977. <br /> <br /> Figure 18 <br /> Deficient Local Bridges (1977 - 1999) <br />6,000 <br /> <br />5,000 <br />4,000 <br />3,000 <br />2,000 <br />1,0oo <br /> <br /> o <br /> <br />While the level of Year <br />investment in bridge Source: Mn/DOT Office of Bridges and Structures <br />repair and replacement in Note: The cause of the upward shift in the number of local deficient bridges in the state beginning in <br /> 1989 is the result of changes in the federal criteria used to determine whether or not a bridge is deficient. <br />recent years has resulted in <br />a steady net reduction of <br />the total number of deficient local bridges, one cannot infer that the same level of commitment will <br />result in similar progress in the future. In the next ten to twenty years, the demand for resources to <br />replace and repair deficient local bridges will increase si~o-nificantly due to the aging of the local bridge <br />inventory combined with the larger deck size requirements of newer bridges. <br /> <br />19 <br /> <br /> <br />