VEVAY TWP. — State officials say they will put wood barriers beneath a bridge over U.S. 127 after a Jackson woman was injured by loose concrete that fell from the bridge and broke through her windshield.

Michigan Department of Transportation crews rushed to inspect bridges along the highway after the incident, which renewed attention on the state's crumbling bridges and roads.

The 38-year-old woman was driving north on U.S. 127 on Wednesday near the Barnes Road overpass in Vevay Township near Mason when the concrete fell, according to a news release from the Ingham County Sheriff's Office. Deputies responded to the crash about 8 a.m.

The debris struck her in the head, according to the news release. The hole it created in her windshield appeared to be roughly the size of a brick, based on a photo provided by the sheriff's office.

The woman was taken to a local hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening, police said. No other vehicles were involved.

Michigan Department of Transportation crews inspected the bridge after the sheriff's office investigated the accident. They removed pieces of loose concrete on the Barnes Road bridge and others along the U.S. 127 corridor. The overpass and underpass are now open to traffic.

Next week, crews will install wood along the bottom of the Barnes Road overpass to catch debris.

MDOT officials acknowledged Thursday in a conference call with media that the Barnes Road overpass was considered safe before the concrete fell Wednesday, and other bridges in Michigan are in worse condition.

"It's fair to say that it is not the worst bridge out there," said Gregory Losch, manager of the MDOT Lansing Transportation Center.

Bridge was rated 'fair' prior to accident

The Barnes Road bridge that dropped concrete Wednesday was last rated in "fair" condition, a step below "good" but a step above a "poor" rating, according to an MDOT online dashboard. MDOT owns the bridge.

The bridge was last inspected June 19, 2018. It was scheduled for another inspection in June.

Some bridges deteriorate faster than inspections indicate, Losch said.

"We catch most of these," he said. "You don't hear about this happening very often. Our system is set in place to prevent this and unfortunately this took place."

Bridges rated fair are considered to need preventive maintenance or minor rehabilitation, according to the federal government's National Bridge Inspection Standards.

Bridges rated poor are not necessarily unsafe for travel, MDOT officials have said, but are considered to have structural deficiencies. Officials have previously emphasized that if a bridge is open to the public it has been inspected and is safe for driving.

In Ingham County, nearly one in five bridges is in poor shape, which is worse than the state average of more than one in 10 bridges, according to a 2019 analysis from the Lansing State Journal.

Related: Nearly 20% of bridges in Ingham County are in poor condition. A fix would cost millions.

Crumbling bridges part of Michigan infrastructure problem

Michigan earned a failing grade in the latest American Society of Civil Engineers infrastructure report card, and fixing "the damn roads" was a key piece of Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's gubernatorial campaign, though her plan to fund that promise with a gas tax was soundly rejected by the Republican-held legislature.

A bridge collapse is one of Whitmer's biggest fears as governor, she said during an interview last summer with the State Journal editorial board.

"You see chunks of concrete that are falling from our bridges," she said. "You see bridges that have plywood keeping concrete from falling onto the cars that are going underneath it."

Throughout Michigan, shoddy conditions forced officials to close 76 bridges, according to the State Journal's 2019 analysis. At least one bridge is currently closed in Ingham County, according to the most recently available online information from MDOT. At least 27 more bridges in the county have weight limits posted to restrict traffic from heavy vehicles.

More: It's clear Lansing's roads are in bad shape. But what would it take to fix them?

Barnes Road bridge maintenance could come sooner than planned

Because poor bridges are more expensive to fix than good or fair ones, Michigan's bridges are on track to continue getting worse. The state would need $3.4 billion to fix all the bridges in poor condition, according to MDOT.

Previously, MDOT's annual bridge repair budget was about $200 million.

Funding for those projects recently got a boost, thanks to a $3.5 billion bonding plan Whitmer announced in late January that will pay for and accelerate dozens of projects throughout the state.

The bonding plan will fund nine major projects in the Lansing area, including rebuilding portions of I-69, I-496 and U.S. 127 and replacing or maintaining bridges over I-96 and U.S. 127. The local projects are expected to cost over $500 million and be completed through 2024.

Maintenance work on the Barnes Road overpass is scheduled for 2023. It's one of the projects "accelerated" because of the bonding plan, Losch said. The department may tackle the project faster because of Wednesday's incident.

The two-lane Barnes Road overpass was built in 1966 and reconstructed in 2014. Its average daily traffic is 4,600 vehicles.

Contact reporter Kara Berg at 517-377-1113 or kberg@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @karaberg95. Contact Sarah Lehr at (517) 377-1056 or slehr@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahGLehr.