How old are Manitoba's bridges?

You and thousands of other drivers were funneled back into Winnipeg after a weekend at the lake. How old are some of the bridges you drove over?

The Province of Manitoba is responsible for nearly 2,600 bridges and bridge-sized culverts with an average age over 42 years old.

It's hard to give a precise average age because more than 200 of Manitoba's structures are so old that the government isn't sure when they were built, according to data obtained by the Free Press through a freedom of information request.

According to Statistics Canada, the mean service life of a bridge is 43.3 years.

The last time the federal government conducted a national survey of infrastructure, in 2007, Manitoba had the second-oldest infrastructure in the country. Statistics Canada told the Free Press it is set to release new data in the fall based on information gathered in 2016.

Meanwhile, in a scathing 2016 report, Manitoba's auditor general said the province had failed to inspect bridges and culverts as often as needed.

The Free Press asked the Manitoba government for a complete inventory of bridges, overpasses and large culverts.

We obtained information on each structure's location, age and its inspection cycle.

According to government's response, bridge inspections appear to now be up to date -- though the AG also noted in that nearly 300 structures were not being inspected at all because they were considered the responsibility of other departments or quasi-government authorities.

The replacement value of the province's bridges and culverts is estimated at $9.2 billion.

When Manitoba's structures were built

How old is the infrastructure you're driving on?

If you're headed to Saskatoon on the Yellowhead highway, you're driving over some of the oldest structures of any major highway in southern Manitoba.  Between the Trans-Canada Highway and the Saskachewan border, the average age of bridges and large culverts is over 50.

If you're headed south to the U.S. border via Highway 59, it's some of the newest.

Below each map shows the number of bridges completed at which year.

Most common structure types

Province's highway spending

Capital spending on highways dropped to $350 million in the 2018-19 budget. "Even if
 we were to choose to make no further capital investment in our highways and bridges," the budget stated, "we
 would still be spending over $450 million annually for years to come, just to pay for the decisions of the past," referring to the previous Selinger government.

Our oldest bridge

...Alright, maybe not the oldest, since we don't know the age of all the structures, but it's the oldest bridge with a known build year. This woooden span over Pipestone Creek in the province's southwest pocket is the oldest bridge in the inventory, built in 1913 and last inspected in 2016.

About the data

Manitoba's structure inventory was obtained through a freedom of information request in the spring of 2018. The Free Press has shared the spreadsheet on Github. Year data displayed does not include structures with a build year listed as "0," which denotes the year is unknown. Data does not include structures maintained by municipalities or other government bodies. Budget data taken from provincial budget documents.