Prompted by the discovery of previously undetected corrosion on the Bay Bridge, Gov. Martin O'Malley has ordered the state's transportation chief to assemble a panel of experts to evaluate Maryland's toll bridge and tunnel inspection program.
The governor's office announced yesterday that Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari will bring together nationally recognized authorities on bridge and tunnel engineering to review the Maryland Transportation Authority's inspection protocols and to recommend best practices.
"Our goal is nothing less than to be a national leader in the maintenance and inspection of our bridges and tunnels," O'Malley said. "We are going to reach out to the best minds in the transportation industry to review our program and identify areas where we can improve."
Formation of the panel follows the announcement last month that inspectors using ultrasound and ground-penetrating radar had found corrosion in the bolts that anchor the concrete barriers that serve as walls to the deck of the Bay Bridge. The discovery prompted emergency repairs that have required one lane of the eastbound span to be closed. Repair work is expected to continue for up to two more weeks.
The special ultrasound inspections were prompted by a fatal Aug. 10 crash in which a tractor-trailer broke through barriers on the span and plunged into the Chesapeake Bay. The truck driver was killed. State officials said the barriers were never designed to withstand a direct hit by a tractor-trailer. But they also said the corrosion of the barrier could not have been detected by the visual inspection of the bridge performed annually.
The National Transportation Safety Board and the authority are still investigating the causes of the crash.
Porcari said the peer review panel, which will report directly to him, will evaluate state-of-the-art inspection practices at transportation facilities around the country and recommend which ones to adopt as part of Maryland's program.
"It could lead to changes in inspection protocols, standard operating procedures, technologies used," he said.
The transportation authority has said its annual inspections exceed federal standards that call for bridges to be inspected every two years. But the revelation that corrosion problems inside the concrete barriers were not detected in routine inspections prompted a call by state Sen. E.J. Pipkin for an independent evaluation of the Bay Bridge.
