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Fern Hollow Bridge should have been closed years before it collapsed
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Re: Fern Hollow Bridge should have been closed years before it collapsed
#82Same stuff for the Genoa, Italy bridge (Ponte Morandi). Everyone running on that would feel vibrations and "repairs" were just lipstick on a ugly face, until it finally collapsed, with 43 dead. Surprisingly, or not so, no one was found guilty, not even the inspectors that didn't report the ongoing damages, just because "it would be too costly to rebuild it, and profits of the highway company (1) in charge of it would…
I'm not sure you can diagnose it much from feeling vibrations if running. As an aside I don't remember it being open to pedestrians - I used to drive it occasionally.
More to the point a proper study a year before the collapse with endoscopes showed the cables were pretty rusted and dangerous https://www.lastampa.it/esteri/la-stampa-in-english/2018/08/...
The company managing it had tendered to get repairs done but they hadn't started by the time of the collapse.
Re: Fern Hollow Bridge should have been closed years before it collapsed
#83An interesting takeaway is that a simple task like cleaning the drainage grates and preventing them from being clogged probably would have saved the bridge. The bridge has a prescribed drainage path, and with the grates clogged the water drains and pools in other places, accelerating the corrosion.
Re: Fern Hollow Bridge should have been closed years before it collapsed
#84For context, there were 42,391 structurally deficient bridges in 2023.[0] 16 of the worst are in LA county and several see 300k trips daily, including one carrying the 405.[1] 0. PDF https://artbabridgereport.org/reports/2023-ARTBA-Bridge-Repo... 1. https://artbabridgereport.org/state/ranking/top-bridges EDIT: States with the least % of SD bridges: AZ, NV, TX, DE, and UT. WV and IA have the most at almost 20% SD brid…
It should be mentioned that structurally deficient does not mean unsafe.
After reading the measument rules, it is… complicated. From what I can gather, it seem that if any of the components (deck, culverts, sub/superstructure, waterways, etc) receive a ‘poor’ rating, the whole structure is marked as structurally deficient. It also factors in things like the current and expected traffic patterns and mainability.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/01/18/2017-00...
Re: Fern Hollow Bridge should have been closed years before it collapsed
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yet Italy spent years trying to put Adrian Newey in jail for building an f1 car involved in a fatal crash.
They also tried to put a bunch of earthquake scientists in jail for not predicting an earthquake.
No, they were jailed because they reassured the population that there was no risk of earthquake, when there absolutely was. That's very different.
Re: Fern Hollow Bridge should have been closed years before it collapsed
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Which bridge that is currently in operation should be closed next? The article/video actually touches on this: > The City of Pittsburgh quadrupled their spending on inspection, maintenance, and repairs. And they redid the load ratings on all the bridges they owned, resulting in one bridge being closed until it can be rehabilitated and two more having lane restrictions imposed. I don't know which one bridge it is, t…
It's the Charles Anderson Bridge. https://engage.pittsburghpa.gov/charles-anderson-bridge
Damn, I was hoping this bridge would stay in its current limbo state where it's open to pedestrians and bikes but closed to vehicles. It's so much nicer not having a five lane stroad that lets cars go 50mph into a park, and instead having a pseudo-community space.
Re: Fern Hollow Bridge should have been closed years before it collapsed
#87Many western countries in general do not care for routine maintenance of infrastructure / buildings / water lines / busses. Norway has to be among the worst. It is not fun and glorious for a political administration to set aside $$$$ every year that will just go to people doing boring work that the voters will not be impressed with. You dont see politicians "Under my administration we painted XX buildings, we did nee…
> You dont see politicians "Under my administration we painted XX buildings...
That's just bad politicking then.
"Under my administration we hired hundreds of workers in Anytown who can proudly say they worked to maintain this city's infrastructure and provide a future for not only their kids but all of our kids. Their paychecks put food on the table and money into the local economy."
Re: Fern Hollow Bridge should have been closed years before it collapsed
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
It should be mentioned that structurally deficient does not mean unsafe.
After reading the measument rules, it is… complicated. From what I can gather, it seem that if any of the components (deck, culverts, sub/superstructure, waterways, etc) receive a ‘poor’ rating, the whole structure is marked as structurally deficient. It also factors in things like the current and expected traffic patterns and mainability. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/01/18/2017-00...
Yes, but as illustrated by the original article/video, bridges are designed as a total system. One of the major causes of the Fern Hollow Bridge collapse was certainly the deficient drainage caused by blocked drains.
Bridges (and buildings) are designed as systems. Water management is one of the biggest headaches in civil engineering - poor performance of any subsystem with a water management role is a legitimate cause for concern.
Re: Fern Hollow Bridge should have been closed years before it collapsed
#89For context, there were 42,391 structurally deficient bridges in 2023.[0] 16 of the worst are in LA county and several see 300k trips daily, including one carrying the 405.[1] 0. PDF https://artbabridgereport.org/reports/2023-ARTBA-Bridge-Repo... 1. https://artbabridgereport.org/state/ranking/top-bridges EDIT: States with the least % of SD bridges: AZ, NV, TX, DE, and UT. WV and IA have the most at almost 20% SD brid…
Those states also have some of the fewest bridges, with the exception of Texas, which has the most of all states, and double the second place state (Ohio). That said, Ohio is 41 times smaller… So many ways to dice this information and I don’t even live in the US. https://www.statista.com/statistics/190386/number-of-road-br...
> That said, Ohio is 41 times smaller…
?
Re: Fern Hollow Bridge should have been closed years before it collapsed
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most “foreign” aid, especially military aid, is is spent within the “donor” country. Japan is the most extreme in this regard, followed by the USA. And, like maintenance: foreign aid can avoid local problems, e.g. stabilizing countries in central America can reduce the incentive for people to flee to the US (which for most people is a distant plan C over staying where they are or moving a short distance away).
Its grift. Why does the US have to spend money on military aid to first world countries, even if a very sizable chunk is spent on American weaponry? That money could be spent on maintenance rather than fattening our MIC. NGOs are similar. In theory they sound good, the leaders can pull sizable salaries, eclipsing any congresspersons earnings and they are incentivized to keep the bad thing happening—if they solved the…
I'm not sure there's that much military aid to first world countries. Where there is like with Israel I think generally the US thinks it's strategically advantageous.