FAQs

The cost of bridge maintenance can vary depending on the scope. The activities can be low cost and effective, such as simply clearing any debris from bearing pads, and maintenance can also be expensive when replacement of structural elements is required. Infrastructure costs in general are sometimes surprisingly high to those that are not regularly engaged in planning, constructing, and maintaining public infrastructure. 

Missoula County is not alone with its bridge maintenance issues. Across the entire country, local governments are grappling with infrastructure deficiencies. Though this has led to money from laws like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which local governments can apply to receiving grants from, there is still a crunch when it comes to funding. Specifically in Montana, counties are limited to property taxes, state gas tax and grants as the only funding mechanisms they can use to pay for everything – services, personnel, infrastructure, etc. – and because counties are limited in how much they can raise property taxes by half the rate of inflation, this means there is limited funding to put toward things like preventative bridge maintenance. The County is actively pursuing grants to help fund many of these improvements, but grant applications require time to put together and to receive funding, leaving counties constantly stuck in the downstream effect of aging bridges that are load-restricted, scour critical or have low sufficiency ratings.

If you see a bridge that needs maintenance, let us know! Drop a pin on our interactive map, and please know that though we may not be able to address the issue immediately, we still appreciate being made aware of the problem.  Additionally, supporting efforts to fund maintenance and construction is a way to help improve the health of our county infrastructure.

Bridges are inspected every two years, and based on inspections and the condition of the bridge, load ratings are calculated. Bridges are also checked for scour and risk of failure due to scour. Generally, the stream bottom is surveyed and a model is created to determine if the stream bed material is able to be moved and how much scour could occur given 100 year events.

A sufficiency rating is a formula that looks at four separate factors to produce one numeric value that is indicative of a bridge’s condition on a scale of 1 to 100. The four factors considered are: 

• Structural adequacy and safety (weighted factor of 55%)
• Serviceability and Functional Obsolescence (weighted factor of 30%)
• Essentiality for public use
• Special reductions

Bridges are inspected every two years and are given ratings on every structural element of the bridge and condition ratings on things like the roadway alignment, the river channel the bridge crosses, etc. All of those ratings contribute to the four factors that comprise the final sufficiency rating.

When the federal government passes laws like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the money does not flow directly down to local governments. Instead, the state receives direct federal funding for state highways, and in the case of BIL, additional funding is placed into competitive grants that local governments may apply for. For example, Missoula County applied for the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grant and Bridge Investment Program (BIP) grant to address bridge infrastructure. There are no guarantees of funding for applicants, so all costs associated with the applications are funded by the local governments.

The Public Works Bridge budget is estimated to generate approximately $964,000 in 2024-2025 with property taxes.  The total revenue generated through various revenue streams is around $1.2M.  A majority of funding cover the personnel and operational costs, leaving very little for bridge replacement or maintenance.  Most homes will pay around $15 to $20 a year into the bridge program through property taxes.

With the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) being passed recently, the opportunity for grant funding has expanded significantly.   Before that, the Montana Coal Endowment Program (MCEP) was the most popular grant program for counties, but it would only fund up to $500,000 for a project, and with bridge replacement costs being in the millions of dollars, it limited what counties could do.  With the federal grant programs now providing the opportunity for millions of dollars, some of the larger scale bridge replacement projects have suddenly become more of a possibility.  The amount of funding coming from grants will vary.  One example in Missoula County is the Lolo Street Bridge replacement project.  A PROTECT grant will fund almost $3M of the replacement, and funding from SB 536 will fund $500,000, leaving only around $235,000 to fund locally.