The latest report about bridge conditions on state highways offers bad and good news for Oregon motorists and truck drivers.

The good news: ODOT is making progress in seismic reinforcement of state bridges, and work is scheduled to start later this year on the George Abernethy Bridge, built in 1970, which carries Interstate 205 across the Willamette River between West Linn and Oregon City. The work will eventually cover nine bridges in a seven-mile stretch of I-205 between Stafford Road and state Highway 213 in Oregon City.

The bad news in the 2021 report released last month by the Oregon Department of Transportation: The percentage of Oregon bridges deemed to be in “good condition” continues to fall, from 40% two decades ago, to 24% in 2021. While Oregon has relatively few state bridges in poor condition, the report also says ODOT is hovering at the edge of the 78% goal it set for bridges maintained in fair condition, and that percentage has been dropping for the past five years.

Time is working against state bridges, more than half of which were built before 1970, during the interstate highway era. A bridge has a normal lifespan of 50 years, although its usefulness can be extended.

Under a 2017 state transportation financing law, $12 million is generated annually for bridge repairs, up from $10 million back in 2018. The recent federal infrastructure financing law, which President Joe Biden signed on Nov. 15, will yield a total of $268 million more earmarked for bridge repairs over the next five or six years. The federal law also offers opportunities for states to seek competitive grants for bridge work.

Still, at the current rate of three bridges annually, it will take 900 years to replace the 2,750 bridges in the state system. ODOT estimates its bridge maintenance backlog at $5 billion.

Robert Van Brocklin of Portland, chairman of the Oregon Transportation Commission, said the new federal funding helps with bridges and other transportation needs — but it is not enough.

“We can make progress on many of our goals, but we cannot solve the vast majority of our funding problems with the money from this legislation,” he said in a statement after a commission meeting Jan. 20. “We also need to pursue other revenue sources to produce sustainable transportation funding to invest in a reliable, diverse transportation system.”

The bridge problem is not new. After state highway officials posted load limits on some bridges on Interstate 5 — Oregon’s main north-south corridor — the 2003 Legislature approved a $2.5-billion financing plan, $1.6 billion of which went to fixing state and local bridges on key freight routes.

In addition to I-5 and I-84, Oregon’s main east-west route, ODOT identified these highways as Fix-It priority routes a decade ago: U.S. Highway 97 through Central Oregon; U.S. Highway 20 between Bend and Burns, U.S. Highway 26 between Portland and the north coast, state Highway 18 from the Portland area to the coast; parts of U.S. Highway 101 on the coast, and state Highway 58 from south of Eugene to Highway 97.

But the report says important bridges, such as the Columbia Slough Bridge that offers access to the industrial area on Marine Drive in Portland, are left out because they are not on state highways and not on priority routes. Built in 1933, the main span of that bridge has steel girders supported by a concrete foundation, but 11 other spans are timber.

Unlike pavement conditions on highways, there are few alternatives for poor conditions on bridges, other than load limits or long detours.

As for seismic reinforcement, the ODOT report says that work has been done on the northern half of vulnerable bridges on U.S. Highway 97 — a north-south route that cuts through Central Oregon — and construction will start on bridges in the southern half.

Of four seismic projects in Southern Oregon, one is complete, one is under construction, and two are in design.

The Abernethy Bridge retrofitting will start with new foundations and a widening of lanes. A total of nine I-205 bridges between Stafford Road and the Highway 213 interchange in Oregon City will be retrofitted or replaced, depending on surveys. When the project is completed, the Abernethy Bridge will be the first at a major river crossing in Oregon that is built to withstand a major earthquake.

“We are hopeful that there will be more opportunities to apply for additional funds” under the federal law for other projects, the report says.