An Interstate 5 bridge near Woodland doesn’t get nearly the notoriety of the I-5 bridge across the Columbia River.

But the northbound span across the North Fork of the Lewis River has created plenty of traffic headaches in the past several years. Workers are patching potholes on the concrete bridge deck six to eight times per year, a rate that state transportation officials say is well above average.

“It seems to me like a waste of time patching it,” said Doug Fredrickson, a Ridgefield resident who drives the bridge daily to his job in Woodland.

Scott Wilcox, bridge maintenance supervisor for the Washington State Department of Transportation in Vancouver, acknowledged that the recurring potholes are a nuisance for motorists and WADOT employees alike. Agency spokeswoman Abbi Russell said the state has spent $60,000 on labor, materials and equipment to make the patches since July 2009.

Yet that’s a deal compared to the cost of a total deck replacement, which would cost $3 million to $4 million.

“I don’t like spending the money out of my budget, but compared to a $3 million deck replacement, we’re saving the taxpayers a lot of money,” Wilcox said.

Despite the recurring potholes over the North Fork of the Lewis, a recent report by a national coalition of transportation and civic organizations ranked Washington as the fifth best in the country in terms of the state of its bridges. Of 7,744 bridges in Washington, 5.1 percent were considered structurally deficient — well below the national average of 11.5 percent.

Keeping pace will be costly.

“We need close to $1 billion over the next 10 years to preserve Washington’s bridge system,” Jugesh Kapur, the state’s bridge engineer, said in a statement. “When we delay these preservation and maintenance projects, more of our bridges will fall below federal standards and could be at risk (of further problems). Delay also means the structures deteriorate quicker, and the fixes become significantly more expensive.”

The bridge across the North Fork is one of the most troublesome in Southwest Washington, Wilcox said.

He said he intends to press the case for moving the 43-year-old northbound span up the state’s list of priorities for a full replacement of the concrete deck. The southbound span, which dates to 1940, has an asphalt overlay and will be repaved this summer as part of a larger paving project.

The concrete deck on the northbound span is reaching the end of its life expectancy, Wilcox said.

Each year, the state Department of Transportation submits to the Legislature a list of the 3,250 bridges the agency maintains statewide. The state determines maintenance priorities based on the average daily traffic count, state of each bridge and the importance of the route.

“It’s my job to present a case to (members of the Legislature) about why this bridge deck should get some attention,” Wilcox said. “Believe me, I will let them know.”

Despite the nuisance of lane closures due to recurring potholes, the northbound span doesn’t rank as highly as other bridges around the state. Its traffic count is substantial — 66,000 vehicles a day — but that’s only about half of the volume of the Columbia River crossing and much less than many bridges around Puget Sound. In addition, Wilcox said, the bridge isn’t quite as badly deteriorated as other spans higher on the list.

As a proportion of the total bridge surface, only 0.1 percent of the deck surface has had to be repaired.

However, Russell said, “Some of the repairs are the same potholes.”

Compounding the problem is the fact that workers have had to make many of the repairs in less-than-ideal conditions during the winter. The concrete patches set up better in dry conditions and air temperature in the mid-60s, Wilcox said.

“That’s a whole lot better than pouring it at 32 degrees and raining at 3 o’clock in the morning,” he said.

Erik Robinson: 360-735-4551, or erik.robinson@columbian.com.

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