Michigan has thousands of bridges, and a meaningful share of them are carrying structural steel coating systems well past their intended service life. Deferred coating maintenance on bridge steel doesn’t stay deferred forever — eventually it becomes a structural problem instead of a maintenance one — and a combination of federal funding, state inspection requirements, and asset age is pushing more of that work into the pipeline now.
What’s Driving the Increase
Federal infrastructure funding is flowing into bridge programs. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allocated roughly $40 billion nationally for bridge repair, replacement, and rehabilitation — the largest dedicated federal bridge investment in decades. Michigan DOT and local road agencies have been putting that funding to work on bridge preservation projects, and coating and structural steel rehabilitation work is a direct beneficiary.
A large share of Michigan’s bridge inventory is aging into the window where recoating is due. Steel bridge coating systems typically have a design service life in the 15 to 25 year range depending on the system and environment. A significant number of Michigan structures were coated or last recoated in the same multi-decade window, which means a wave of bridges are becoming due for major coating maintenance at roughly the same time rather than on a staggered schedule.
Inspection findings are catching more deficiencies earlier. Federally mandated bridge inspection cycles are identifying coating breakdown and section loss before it becomes an emergency closure — which shifts more projects into the planned-maintenance category instead of the reactive-repair category. That’s good for asset owners, but it also means more coating and blasting scope entering the bid pipeline in a shorter window.
Why Surface Prep Method Matters More on This Type of Work
Bridge and infrastructure surface preparation carries constraints that a typical building or plant project doesn’t:
- Environmental containment over water or traffic. Full containment systems are required to prevent spent media, paint chips, and dust from entering waterways or falling on roadways below — this is a regulatory requirement, not optional, on most bridge coating projects.
- Access and traffic control. Work often happens under lane closures, at height, or over active waterways, which limits working windows and requires equipment and crews suited to elevated, confined, or over-water access.
- Lead paint on older structures. Many Michigan bridges were originally coated with lead-based paint systems, which brings the containment, worker protection, and disposal requirements covered in our post on lead paint abatement during industrial blasting.
- Method selection where containment is restricted. On structures where abrasive containment over traffic or water is difficult to certify, UHP water blasting for bridges and structural steel is increasingly specified as an alternative that limits airborne media entirely.
What This Means for Agencies and Facility Owners
Bid volume for bridge and infrastructure coating work is increasing, and contractors with the containment systems, lead-safe practices, and documented SSPC surface preparation experience to handle it are in higher demand than the supply of qualified crews. For agencies and asset owners planning coating maintenance, the practical takeaway is to plan further ahead than has historically been necessary — qualified contractor capacity is tightening as more of this funded work reaches the bid stage at the same time.
For structures where coating deterioration is visible now, waiting rarely reduces the eventual cost. Coating failure exposes bare steel to uniform corrosion and, on older structures, pitting that can affect section thickness over time — see our guide to the types of industrial corrosion for how that progression typically plays out on exposed structural steel.
Contact Blasting Jack to discuss surface preparation and coating support for bridge, infrastructure, and structural steel projects in Michigan.