AUGUSTA – The shutdown Tuesday of a stretch of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia for emergency repairs on a 6-foot crack in a concrete pillar supporting an elevated highway has prompted calls to the Maine Department of Transportation asking about the condition of the state’s roads and bridges.

“After the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis collapsed last August, Governor John Baldacci ordered a study on Maine’s roads and bridges,” DOT spokesman Mark Lahti said Wednesday.

“We found bridges and roads are safe in Maine,” Lahti said.

The governor’s report, “Keeping Our Bridges Safe,” issued Nov. 28 in response to the statewide inspection, identified 386 deficient bridges, however, and cited an annual increase investment of $50 million needed in addition to the $70 million already budgeted at the time.

The November study pointed out Maine’s need to replace its aging bridges before time runs out.

Lahti said this week he first read of the Philadelphia bridge incident in a local newspaper and then followed it up by reading a Philadelphia newspaper online to get more details.

What impressed him, besides the daily traffic on the interstate of 190,000 vehicles, was how rapidly the crack in the pillar had spread between last fall and Tuesday.

According to a wire service account in the Bangor Daily News, an inspector from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation had spotted a half-inch crack in the pillar last fall. The same inspector just happened to see the crack again this week and saw that it had become a fracture 2 inches to several inches wide.

While the Pennsylvania pillar discovery was happenstance, Maine DOT has a routine for inspections.

Lahti said the DOT has been making regular bridge and roads inspections since the Nov. 28 report was issued.

“We’re either at a point of finding funding, or posting or closing a bridge,” he said. “If the bridge is unsafe, it’s closed.”

Posting a bridge often means reducing the weight limit to 23,000 pounds to keep tractor-trailers and heavy motor homes off the structure.

In the spring, ground thaws leave the soil under the pavement saturated and the pavement unstable, according to the DOT Web site.

The DOT takes care of state and state-aid roads in Maine except for the 110 miles of the Maine Turnpike.

“The Turnpike Authority takes care of its own roads and bridges,” he said.

For information about conditions and construction projects on the Maine Turnpike, go to www.maineturnpike.com. For information on roads and bridges in Maine, go to www.maine.gov/mdot-stage and click on 2008 Posted Roads Info. You may also call the DOT region office in your area: Region 2, Augusta, 624-8200; Region 4, Bangor, 941-5000; Region 5, Presque Isle, 764-2060.

gchappell@bangordailynews.net

236-4598