Chunks of cracked concrete are falling off the Interstate 25 overpass at Richards Avenue, but the state Department of Transportation doesn't see that as a problem.

"The cracking you see (is) more like a superficial thing," said DOT spokesman S.U. Mahesh. "It's not a safety issue or structurally unsound."

Rancho Viejo residents, who pass under the overpasses on their way to and from Santa Fe, aren't so sure.

One resident said she first noticed the cracked concrete and missing pieces about a year ago.

"It didn't look right to have a block like that with concrete missing," she said. "They'll have a lawsuit on their hands if that bridge falls down."

Mahesh said the two bridges were built in 1976. When they were last inspected two years ago, he said, they were given a sufficiency rating of
68.8 and 68.9 on a 100-point scale.

"Anything above a 50 is in pretty good shape," he said. "There's no danger of anything."

Bridge engineers say pieces of concrete falling from the exteriors of bridges do not necessarily signal structural problems, although they may endanger people below.

Last August, an overpass along the Baltimore-Washington Parkway in Maryland and the Tobin Bridge spanning the Mystic River near Boston were closed temporarily after falling pieces of concrete fell from them, damaging cars and boats below.

Structural integrity of the nation's bridges has been under closer scrutiny since Aug. 1, when an Interstate 35W bridge across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed, killing 13 people.

State bridge inspectors visited the two I-25 bridges near the site of another bridge, under construction for the new Railrunner Express train, after The New Mexican sent them photographs of the cracked concrete. The photos show exposed rebar and 10-pound pieces of concrete on the ground.

"That was one of the reasons they went and checked it to make sure," Mahesh said. "If you're traveling underneath, you don't want any debris falling on your car. That's a dangerous situation. So they went and checked it. The (fallen concrete) is just falling next to the guard rail, away from the traveling public."

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080.