How Will We Solve the Coming Bridge-Collapse Crisis?
Every once in a while, people around the country get up in arms about bridge safety. I have been quietly worrying about bridge safety for many, many years. For instance, a long time ago I read in my local paper, the Boston Globe, about several of the most dangerous bridges in the state. One of them is not far from where I live. I almost never go over that bridge without picturing my death. And there’s another bridge in Boston that scares me. For the longest time, you could drive over it and actually look down and view the Charles River through holes in the tarmac. I think they may have fixed it recently.
Anyway, I heard about an effort by the U.S. Department of Transportation not to FIX bridges, but to COLLECT MORE DATA on bridges. Don’t we already know enough?
A 20-year research effort to collect data on bridges nationwide will lead to better investment decisions on bridges, Acting Federal Highway Administrator Jim Ray, announced. “Bringing a strategic and national perspective to bridge research will offer tremendous benefits,” Ray said. “The approach is forward-looking in providing the information bridge owners need to make the best investment decisions.”
I think the government should figure out a way to launch a program similar to the Works Progress Administration of the 1930s to employ people who need jobs, and fix the country’s crumbling infrastructure. Does anyone think this is possible?
May 19th, 2008 at 9:44 am
I do think it is not only possible, but probable.
IMHO it would be more easily accomplished if we were not waging war in Iraq.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:46 am
I grew up in Minnesota and drove over the 35W bridge a few days prior to its collapse during a visit back home. That definitely brought home the need for resolving our crumbling infrastructure!
May 19th, 2008 at 10:04 am
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May 19th, 2008 at 10:27 am
I’ve always had a fear of bridges. I hate driving over them. I would like nothing more than to see them all either visibly shored up or torn down
May 19th, 2008 at 10:43 am
The highway which is our only link to town and to the rest of the Big Island of Hawaii where we live can be kept open only with constant maintenance of the many bridges that span the gulches along the coast.
Highway 99 in Seattle, which is a double decker in places, is the one that scares me. My daughters use it all the time to bypass traffic on the busier I-5.
May 19th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
At some point the government has to make decisions like a family. What do we need to fix and what are we willing to do without until we get it fixed. Our infrastructure is in fact crumbling. In order to fix it we must decide what are we willing to put on hold, healthcare insurance, additional educational benefits, economic stimulus packages? I certainly don’t have the answers, but I do know that we can’t have it all, and there are some very tough decisions that need to be made by the next administration, regardless of their party affiliation.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
I am sure you’re especially paranoid in Boston after the whole Big Dig disaster!
In our area, the Woodrow Wilson Bridge was literally falling apart but now they’re rebuild it and added an extra span.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Oh, the Big Dig is a whole other can of worms. The woman who died in the tunnel incident was from my neighborhood.
May 19th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
The problem is that 90% Federal funding for so many of these road/bridge projects. The states are addicted to that 90% so much that state officials like to build, build, build…It’s one thing to build lots of bridges, but the states are responsible for maintaining them. All 50 states do this all the time.
I’m all for anything that assists in the maintaining of roads. Maybe a system of planned preventive maintenance might work, although like you say, nothing seems to be fixed correctly until the thing collapses
May 20th, 2008 at 7:16 am
thanks for reviving WPA from my era. we could make use of similar notions–like the CCC (civilian conservation corps) from back then– as a way to rehab the gulf coast as well as national infrastructure.
should we wait for another 1930s economic bottom or just keep pouring lives and dollars into iraq?
May 20th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Naomi, I LOVE the idea of the WPA.