{"id":55077,"date":"2026-03-30T09:00:50","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T13:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/case\/?post_type=news&p=55077"},"modified":"2026-04-01T15:24:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T19:24:55","slug":"rachel-sangree-contributes-to-asces-infrastructure-evaluation-for-maryland","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/case\/news\/rachel-sangree-contributes-to-asces-infrastructure-evaluation-for-maryland\/","title":{"rendered":"Rachel Sangree contributes to ASCE\u2019s infrastructure evaluation for Maryland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Approximately every four years, the\u00a0American Society of Civil Engineers<\/a> (ASCE)-Maryland Section releases a comprehensive Report Card for Maryland\u2019s Infrastructure<\/a> meant to inform the state\u2019s long-term public safety, policies, and capital infrastructure investments. Typically, individual state report cards are released in tandem with ASCE\u2019s nationwide report card for the U.S.<\/p>\n

Infrastructure systems have a significant impact on states\u2019 economies, quality of life, and environmental health, so it is imperative that these systems are equipped for long-term resilience.<\/p>\n

Released in October 2025, the most recent Maryland report card from ASCE-MD is a comprehensive evaluation of the condition, performance, and future needs of 13 key infrastructure categories across the state. The report provides letter grades for aviation, bridges, dams, drinking water, energy, hazardous waste, ports, rail, roads, solid waste, stormwater, transit, and wastewater\u2014based on eight criteria that include capacity, condition, operation and maintenance, funding, future needs, public safety, resilience, and innovation. The grades are then averaged to provide an overall infrastructure grade for the state.<\/p>\n

The committee who produces the report, comprising civil engineers from across Maryland, collects and analyzes publicly available data, meets with the agencies responsible for various infrastructure systems, prepares and reviews findings, and presents their conclusions. They view the report as a tool to help residents, businesses, and policymakers understand and improve the state\u2019s infrastructure.<\/p>\n

The 2025 report assigned Maryland a cumulative grade of \u2018C\u2019, which means that, overall, the state\u2019s infrastructure is performing adequately to meet current needs, but additional investment is needed to ensure the long-term success of these systems.<\/p>\n

Rachel Sangree<\/a>, structural engineering expert and associate teaching professor in Johns Hopkins University\u2019s Department of Civil and Systems Engineering<\/a>, served as part of the all-volunteer committee that researched and authored the 2025 report card. Based on her structural expertise, Sangree, a licensed professional engineer, was part of the team assigned to evaluate the state\u2019s bridge infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cBridges generally have a maximum design life of about 50 to 75 years, and a large share of Maryland\u2019s bridges were built during President Eisenhower\u2019s interstate expansion in the 1950s through 1970s, so we\u2019re approaching that design life threshold which means now is the time for intervention,\u201d says Sangree.<\/p>\n

She says that because the state\u2019s bridges are inspected every two years, there is a substantial amount of data available through the National Bridge Inventory for the evaluation committee to see how bridge conditions have changed, and to determine the portion of bridges in good, fair, and poor condition for the report.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose of us on the bridge evaluation team also spoke with different agencies, like the Maryland Department of Transportation\u2019s State Highway Administration and Maryland Transportation Authority, to uncover information that\u2019s not readily available from NBI data,”<\/p>\n

Sangree says. \u201cWe gather information about how these agencies are extending the lives of existing bridges and building greater resilience into new bridges through innovative materials and design details and gauge available funding levels for maintenance, repair, and replacement.\u201d<\/p>\n

In comparison, Maryland\u2019s grade matches the \u2018C\u2019 average for states across the U.S. in ASCE\u2019s 2025 national report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve really endeavored to be consistent in the state\u2019s infrastructure report card across years and within each category,\u201d Sangree says. \u201cGiven that infrastructure is closely tied to our economy, quality of life, and environmental health, the goal is to make comparisons easier for those reading the reports so that the information can readily be used for long-term improvements.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","class_list":["post-55077","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry","news_categories-department-news","news_categories-structures"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRachel Sangree contributes to ASCE\u2019s infrastructure evaluation for Maryland - Department of Civil & Systems Engineering<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/case\/news\/rachel-sangree-contributes-to-asces-infrastructure-evaluation-for-maryland\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rachel Sangree contributes to ASCE\u2019s infrastructure evaluation for Maryland - 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