Mn Bridge Collapse: Coming To You

[IllustriousPotentate]

As you know, Wednesday evening, the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River collapsed. It was rated structurally deficient, and a combination of construction and heavy rush hour traffic may have led to its demise.

Next time you go out for a drive, consider this:

There are 75,000-plus bridges in the U.S. that are also labeled structurally deficient.

Of course, this doesn't mean that 75,000 bridges are about to fall down--there is a safety buffer built into the measurement.

What this does mean, though, is that it is imperative that these bridges are fixed, and soon. The I-35W bridge was scheduled to be replaced in 2020. Obviously, it couldn't wait that long. And if we procrastinate that long replacing or fixing the other 75,000 bridges, we could have more serious problems like the one in Minneapolis.

With transportation dollars being mismanaged and misused, and diverted to other things, bridges and road infrastructure gets neglected.

Structurally deficient bridges is just one problem. The same report lists 80,000 functionally obsolete bridges, bridges that are no longer able to sufficiently serve the traffic that uses them.

The U.S. has dropped the ball on transportation funding. In many places, road infrastructure is the same as it was 40 years ago. The very same system that helped the nation grow and prosper now stands to choke it.

[K-RadPie]

Then good thing there are no bridges I ever drive over.

[IllustriousPotentate]

It should be noted that there are only 592,000 bridges in the bridge inventory in the U.S.
This means that 12.7%, or roughly 1 out of 8 bridges is structurally deficient.

Here's an example of one of these in my state. It shows just how bad some of these bridges are.

[Emulous]

The problem isn't just the transportation department getting its funding cut. The same thing happens when you cut the funding in any department. The real problem is that the government as it is structured now is just so inefficient that when ever you cut the spending problems will arise because no one can figure out how to fix a problem with less money.

Just look at the U.S. postal service it is a sinkhole for money and inefficiency.

What needs to be done is a whole new restructuring of the various departments and put more regulations that put the people in charge responsible for their decisions. e.g. If Bob the education president of Podunk county wastes money on new computers when older and cheaper computers do just as good of a job, then he should be accountable, and if he keeps screwing up then he should be fired. If a company went by the standards the U.S. Government uses then they would go out of business.

Unless your Walmart which is itself a foul and bureaucratic company thats wasting money.

[IllustriousPotentate]

At 8/2/07 08:21 PM, Emulous wrote: The problem isn't just the transportation department getting its funding cut. The same thing happens when you cut the funding in any department. The real problem is that the government as it is structured now is just so inefficient that when ever you cut the spending problems will arise because no one can figure out how to fix a problem with less money.

While that is somewhat true, this isn't a problem that can be solved with the amount of money being invested right now, regardless of how efficiently it is spent. Not only do governments have to repair these bridges, but build new ones, upgrade roads, build new roads to meet demand, etc.

Just look at the U.S. postal service it is a sinkhole for money and inefficiency.

Actually, the Postal Service is quite profitable. It made a profit of $1 billion the past 5 years according to an article on about.com.

What needs to be done is a whole new restructuring of the various departments and put more regulations that put the people in charge responsible for their decisions. e.g. If Bob the education president of Podunk county wastes money on new computers when older and cheaper computers do just as good of a job, then he should be accountable, and if he keeps screwing up then he should be fired. If a company went by the standards the U.S. Government uses then they would go out of business.

Again, while more efficiency is good, without more funding, we're just rearranging chairs on a slowly sinking Titanic.

Unless your Walmart which is itself a foul and bureaucratic company thats wasting money.

[bbs-addict]

thank god i live in canada. anyway, if 12.7 percent of the bridges are in need of repairs, and the MN one was supposed to be repaired in 2020, then your only soloution would be to reorganize and refund the transportation department, because we can't just reorgainze without refunding the department. Nor can we refund the department without reorgainzing it.

:sorry for any spelling mistakes.

[IllustriousPotentate]

At 8/2/07 11:48 PM, bbs-addict wrote: thank god i live in canada.

Canada has plenty of unsafe bridges too.

anyway, if 12.7 percent of the bridges are in need of repairs, and the MN one was supposed to be repaired in 2020, then your only soloution would be to reorganize and refund the transportation department, because we can't just reorgainze without refunding the department. Nor can we refund the department without reorgainzing it.

Organization isn't that big a problem, IMO. Many DOT's, especially at the state level, are actually better organized than many government agencies.

[Tibyrius]

I was there when it happened, I was just about to cross the bridge when suddently I heard a giant
rumbling sound than cars started to disappear a few cars up.

[IllustriousPotentate]

At 8/3/07 05:18 AM, Tibyrius wrote: I was there when it happened, I was just about to cross the bridge when suddently I heard a giant
rumbling sound than cars started to disappear a few cars up.

Wow, that must have been a scary sight. How fast was traffic moving at the time?

[Ultimate7777]

At 8/3/07 05:28 AM, IllustriousPotentate wrote:

At 8/3/07 05:18 AM, Tibyrius wrote: I was there when it happened, I was just about to cross the bridge when suddently I heard a giant
rumbling sound than cars started to disappear a few cars up.

Wow, that must have been a scary sight. How fast was traffic moving at the time?

It was rush hour.

[IllustriousPotentate]

At 8/3/07 06:03 AM, Ultimate7777 wrote: It was rush hour.

That doesn't tell me anything. Traffic speeds could have been anywhere from 0 to 50 mph.