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6,000 pounds across a 3-ton max bridge?" Weismantel said. "It's kind of a gamble. It's also very dangerous. Somebody could get killed."
• Weismantel is in the same situation as her colleagues in many other South Dakota counties. Brown County has 152 bridges, and she has to use her $9 million annual road and bridge budget to maintain the 42 bridges on heavily traveled county roads. The other 110, typically on less traveled township roads, are of lesser priority. Most can't be replaced because a new bridge would cost at least several hundred thousand dollars, she said.
• Bridge 180, near the small town of Barnard, was recently closed because of holes and other problems that made it unsafe. It would have cost $500,000 to replace, Weismantel said.
• "I don't have the extra money to do it," Weismantel said.
• State Sen. Mike Vehle, R-Mitchell, has tried for years to get more money for state and local roads and bridges. The state highway system is in good shape because federal stimulus money was used to fix nearly all bad roads and bridges, but counties, townships and some cities still need more money, he said. The Legislature in 2011 raised annual registration fees for vehicles to provide what now amounts to an extra $30 million a year for local government roads and bridges, but that fell about $50 million short of their estimated need of $80 million a year, Vehle said.
• "Everyone wants good roads and bridges. No one wants to pay for it," Vehle said.
• The state bridge system, which carries most traffic, is in good shape. The DOT reports that just 79 of the state-owned 1,798 bridges, or 4.4 percent, were rated structurally deficient.
• Of the South Dakota bridges rated structurally deficient and fracture critical in 2012, only two were owned by the state and neither is in general use any more.
• A bridge over gravel-surfaced state Highway 53 in south-central South Dakota was replaced by a new bridge when that portion of the road was relocated. The state is transferring the old bridge to a private landowner, Goeden said. "There's really no traffic on it."
• A bridge leading to Fischer Grove State Park near Frankfort was closed after flooding wrecked the structure in 2011. It's now open only to golf carts and pedestrians. The state moved a campground to another side of the lake accessible by another road.
• "We built a new campground for a lot less than that it would have cost to build a bridge," said Bob Schneider, assistant state parks director.
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