I could swear they just had a report that said it was worse, unless it was saying how much it had declined over the past few years. Or projects that are paused/put on hold due to lack of funding.
Pedestrian bridge collapses at FIU
- Thread starter Cyclones_R_GR8
- Start date
I could swear they just had a report that said it was worse, unless it was saying how much it had declined over the past few years. Or projects that are paused/put on hold due to lack of funding.
Not sure I see a car... I do see a white roof portion coming down and it stays leaning at the right end. There is a "dark" spot that could maybe be mistaken for a windshield if that's what your seeing?
Guess it could have been part of the roof and that dark spot made it look like a car.
I see how it could be interpreted as that because it does appear that way, but it's not a vehicle. Look at some of the photos of the immediate aftermath. If there was a vehicle up there, it would be laying on the ground next to or on top of the bridge. There's no such vehicle in those photos.
Also, in this video, the vehicle would've had to have been on top of the roof of the walkway, not the deck.
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Interesting. The report I'm citing is just a snapshot of current structures, not trends on if they're getting improved or disregarded. I do know things are tight in Wisconsin. I look for Kansas to be jumping some spots on that list in the coming years, as well.
So the category "rural local road" comprises 69% of structurally deficient bridges and average about 50 crossings a day? Seems like an analysis of whether those bridges could or should just be removed and rerouted is in order.
Perhaps the clearest analysis of need for each bridge would be the cost per trip across the bridge for its expected lifespan. That would highlight need pretty quick (and also the sanity of replacing a seldom traveled bridge).
Your posts are making me miss just being able to walk down the hall and talk with my favorite structural engineers. If still working I'd be picking their brains on this over a cup of coffee ths morning.
That same logic is what is preventing cities like CR from getting the Army Corps of Engineers from doing flood prevention projects even though money is allocated for it. @BoxsterCy can explain/elaborate more on the process I am sure and I don't want to send this to the cave.
I'm sure you could pick up the phone and give them a call! Most engineers are probably geeking out trying to guess what the cause was right now. Although it's a terrible tragedy, it is nice to have some experience under my belt to explain these concepts to my friends and family so they aren't misinformed.
When something doesn't make economic sense to do, it should be incumbent upon those who want to do it anyway to bear the cost, whether that is local or state.
I still drive across these "bridges" that are wood planks. Seriously, there are at least two near me that are wood railroad tie like. They don't need a bridge. They need a culvert and some dirt. Regardless, they are low priority and the state likes them that way because every time they want more money they come back to the number of deficient bridges.
Missouri did a huge program a couple years ago that replaced 557 bridges in a two year span. many of them are exactly as you describe: they took old, decrepit, small, rural bridges and replaced them with box culverts. I believe Pennsylvania is undergoing a similar program right now. Think of it as the "band aid" approach to fix all those little bridges around the state.
I would agree as well. Thank you for the input! The post-tensioning makes sense. Also combined with the initial report of one of the workers nearby that heard a loud crack. I wonder if they were in the process of tightening up the internal cables and something just simply failed? Crazy stuff with more info to come I'm sure!
The whole thing is unimaginable to me. You see big bridges built all of the time segment by segment cantilevered without temporary support like the I-35W. To have something like this that was moved into play in one piece fail is likely making my old buddies heads spin this morning.
One of the most interesting assignments I had at the Corps of Engineers was being our agency liaison to the MnDOT team and contractor designing and building the fasttrack replacement of the I-35 bridge. Amazing group and a top notch team that the contractor assembled.
Obviously the death and injury toll are tragic and I wish these things would never happen. But the engineering community does learn a lot from failures. Some of the other failures cited in this thread (KC Hyatt Regency, I35W in MSP, etc), while tragic, have lead to improvements of our industry.
Failures are fascinating to me simply from the sleuthing part of it. Here's a bridge in Columbia that failed earlier this year. This one was under construction. The failure is still under investigation, but there were many fatalities on this one, as well:
Yikes, that looks expensive. It appears the main supports were not sufficient as they collapsed outward and the center support comes down. After a couple more views, that center support twists a little and the first two cables to the left fail first. Possibly not balanced correctly?
