Bridge Collapse
Posted on Aug 02, 2007 - 12:42pm by Don Rogers in News, Trucking
How often have you been sitting in construction on a bridge, feeling it bounce up and down, hearing the comment from the c.b. wondering what the weight limit is on this bridge. The collapse in MN brings to light the deterioration of our national road system. Apparently there are thousands of bridges across the country that are in the same shape as the one that fell yesterday. Our highway system is wearing out faster than government is willing to spend the tax money to maintain them. We are hearing all of the time of highway funds being diverted to special interest projects rather than being spent to improve roads that are the lifeblood of the nation. I see it all of the time, fancy sound barriers being erected to protect high price neighborhoods from the noise of trucks crashing through the potholes that the funds should have been used to fill.
Our highways are overcrowded and worn out, pushed past their design limits, scenes from the shores of the Mississippi in Minneapolis are likely to be repeated if changes don’t come soon.
My heart goes out to the victims and families of this disaster. This disaster should never have happened, if we don’t stop diverting money to improve our highway system it is bound to happen again.
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[...] a little more simple. Our government is allowing our infrastructure to fall apart for reasons that Don states on top of the normal stupidity, corruption and greed from more glamorous pork projects. [...]
That was horrible! Just a reminder though,,,,,the bridges are made to move like that so they don’t break. they are built on a flexible load bearing design kinda like all those empty flatbeds you see bowed up. If you are ever on one that was moving then stops, get the heck off of it. That is more than likely what happened there, i’d bet that right before it fell, it stopped flexing. They had already had documented corrosion of the bearings on that bridge. When they corrode to the point where they are no longer free, you have major problems.
I agree, bridges are supposed to flex. The flexing transfers the load along the span, but with anything that moves, it wears out. The States have fallen down on repairing and replacing bridges that have worn out. Most bridges have a finite lifespan and so many have already exceeded this time-limit and the States have wasted the money set aside to replace them.