Rehabilitation of Historic Bridges

Abstract

Preserving historic bridges requires the technical expertise of engineers; however, engineers and engineering educators interested in engineering history are rare. This article considers the present situation of the field of engineering and the rehabilitation of historic bridges. The authors first present the policy statement of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) on the maintenance, repair, and rehabilitation of historic bridges. They provide other background on this issue and then report on the Historic Bridge Workshop held in December 2003 in Washington, D.C., undertaken to articulate and define efficient and economical strategies for historic bridge preservation and management. The authors describe each of ten steps outlined at the conference: mandate the development of historic bridge management plans, create a National Historic Bridge Task Force, develop a National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) synthesis to explore the decisionmaking process on rehabilitating or replacing historic bridges, increase and enhance funding for historic bridge management and preservation, develop a national glossary for historic bridges that would be posed on a clearinghouse Web site, develop a national context on historic bridges, develop a Web site on the management and preservation of historic bridges, improve state DOT (Department of Transportation) management and tracking of the status of historic bridges, and collect and distribute technical guidance on historic bridge rehabilitation and maintenance.