Catch Me, I’m Falling
By SAMUEL I. SCHWARTZ
New York TImes
THE horrific collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis was but one more in the history of infrastructure failures, and I’m afraid it will be old news soon.
In 1967, during the busy Christmas shopping season, the Silver Bridge over the Ohio River between Point Pleasant, W.Va., and Gallipolis, Ohio, collapsed, plunging scores of people into the river and killing 46. During my nearly 20 years as an engineer with the New York City Department of Transportation, I witnessed numerous bridge failures, including the collapse of the West Side Highway in 1973, the fatal snap of a Brooklyn Bridge cable in 1981, and the 1989 fall of a concrete slab from the underdeck of Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, which crushed a Brooklyn dentist in his car. I was the engineer who closed the Williamsburg Bridge in 1988 after corrosion-induced cracks were discovered. Outside New York City there were two spectacular collapses: The Mianus River bridge in Connecticut, which killed three people in 1983, and the Schoharie Bridge in upstate New York, which killed 10 in 1987.
The typical federal and state response to a bridge collapse is to throw a bucket of money at the problem but then attach strings. Usually, the money can primarily be used on expensive capital improvements or new bridges but not for the “mop and pail” work the bridges really need. It’s like not doing basic maintenance on your car, letting the oil run out, waiting for the engine to seize up and then replacing the car. The cure of routine maintenance would have cost much less.
The United States spends a small fraction, proportionately, of what other countries spend on the basic maintenance of infrastructure. States and localities do this because if they wait until bridges are in poor condition, they become eligible for federal funds. The budget offices in cities and states view federal money as other people’s money. When it comes to infrastructure we have become junkies for other people’s money.
We must become religious about basic maintenance. It appears that there were warnings of serious deficiencies on the I-35W bridge — signs of corrosion and more worrisome fatigue cracks. Not only must we increase the frequency of bridge inspections, but we need to use and develop technologies that predict problems.
(Continued here.)
New York TImes
THE horrific collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis was but one more in the history of infrastructure failures, and I’m afraid it will be old news soon.
In 1967, during the busy Christmas shopping season, the Silver Bridge over the Ohio River between Point Pleasant, W.Va., and Gallipolis, Ohio, collapsed, plunging scores of people into the river and killing 46. During my nearly 20 years as an engineer with the New York City Department of Transportation, I witnessed numerous bridge failures, including the collapse of the West Side Highway in 1973, the fatal snap of a Brooklyn Bridge cable in 1981, and the 1989 fall of a concrete slab from the underdeck of Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, which crushed a Brooklyn dentist in his car. I was the engineer who closed the Williamsburg Bridge in 1988 after corrosion-induced cracks were discovered. Outside New York City there were two spectacular collapses: The Mianus River bridge in Connecticut, which killed three people in 1983, and the Schoharie Bridge in upstate New York, which killed 10 in 1987.
The typical federal and state response to a bridge collapse is to throw a bucket of money at the problem but then attach strings. Usually, the money can primarily be used on expensive capital improvements or new bridges but not for the “mop and pail” work the bridges really need. It’s like not doing basic maintenance on your car, letting the oil run out, waiting for the engine to seize up and then replacing the car. The cure of routine maintenance would have cost much less.
The United States spends a small fraction, proportionately, of what other countries spend on the basic maintenance of infrastructure. States and localities do this because if they wait until bridges are in poor condition, they become eligible for federal funds. The budget offices in cities and states view federal money as other people’s money. When it comes to infrastructure we have become junkies for other people’s money.
We must become religious about basic maintenance. It appears that there were warnings of serious deficiencies on the I-35W bridge — signs of corrosion and more worrisome fatigue cracks. Not only must we increase the frequency of bridge inspections, but we need to use and develop technologies that predict problems.
(Continued here.)
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