After a piece of concrete fell onto a car driving on Suitland Road under the Capital Beltway bridge in the Washington area on Tuesday, Acting Maryland Transportation Secretary Pete K. Rahn ordered the inspection of 27 state-owned bridges in similar condition.
Of the 27 bridges, eight are in Baltimore County.
They are all rated structurally deficient, which means the deck, superstructure or substructure have been rated in poor condition, according to the Maryland Department of Transportation.
Those in the southwest portion of the county include the Interstate 695 inner loop bridge at Benson Avenue in Arbutus; the I-695 inner loop bridge at US1 and Leeds Avenue in Arbutus; and the Crosby Road bridge over I-695 in Westview.
Others include: the I-695 bridge over Milford Mill Road, the Putty Hill Road bridge over I-695, the Maryland 137 bridge over Interstate 83, the I-83 bridge over Padonia Road, and the Maryland 151 bridge over the Patapsco and Back River Railroad.
"Motorists should not have to think twice about driving across one of our bridges," Rahn said Thursday in a press release. "These targeted statewide inspections will help us immediately identify any bridges in need of repair, with the goal of preventing what happened on Tuesday from occurring again."
Inspections will start right away and are expected to take several days, MDOT said.
Teams of trained bridge inspectors will examine each bridge to identify and repair any loose concrete, MDOT said.
"The actual inspections will not impact traffic," said Chuck Brown, an MDOT spokesman. "If they do find something that requires a repair, it may impact traffic."
According to the release, of the 2,903 bridges maintained by the State Highway Administration and the Maryland Transportation Authority, 82 are rated structurally deficient, which means they are safe for travel but in need of rehabilitation or replacement.
Structurally deficient bridges are inspected at least once a year, while all other bridges are inspected every two years, Brown said.
"I can't emphasize enough that these roads are safe to travel on," Brown said.