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154 Comments
- gebx, on 10/10/2007, -9/+63Look people.. either A) we fix these bridges or B) we keep destroying Iraq's bridges.. we can only do one here.
- Error601, on 10/10/2007, -3/+35An deficiency != a safety problem. I bet you could find tons of structure deficiencies around your house.
- lostradamus, on 10/10/2007, -3/+30With your help we can end BC in our lifetime.
- AKBryant54, on 10/10/2007, -1/+27Once again television controls America's collective reality. Before this coverage as far as anyone was concerned bridges never collapsed, and now that one has apparently every bridge is on the verge of collapsing. Mass hysteria FTL.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -6/+26I meant, So WHY do we borrow almost 2 billion a day to police Iraq when our infrastructure is crumbling?
- Nodaki, on 10/10/2007, -10/+29The Federal Govt. should follow the the 10th amendment. The states shouldn't have to listen to Federal law in order to get their highways fixed but that is constantly the case. You want your highways funds then your state must make .08 the legal level of intoxication. The states should be repairing their own infrastructure with money they should be taxing their own populace.
We are GIVING $30 billion of American's tax dollars to Israel. There I just found where nearly 1/4 of the money we needed to fix this stuff could be saved. Abolish the income tax, give individual states the responsibility for their own infrastructure. Get off the Federal tit. - macaddct1984, on 10/10/2007, -0/+19One bridge falls down and suddenly every bridge in the United States is unsafe.
- FyreGoddess, on 10/10/2007, -2/+18Maybe not YOUR house...
- Richandler, on 10/10/2007, -1/+14That stat is BS and misleading. If this were so we'd be having bridge collapsing accidents every day for the next 190 years.
- Vicujozobenaxod, on 10/10/2007, -2/+15I don't buy this for a minute. They are making this out to believe all bridges are falling apart. Furthermore, the states have to keep on top of their own infrastructure, not the federal government. This is how Katrina came to be a disaster, way too much dependency on the federal government and no action by the state.
- FyreGoddess, on 10/10/2007, -5/+14OR! We could just steal Iraq's bridges and use them in place of our own.
HAHA! Two birds, one stone. :-) - DaffyDuck, on 10/10/2007, -2/+11Cause "the decider" said so!
- NoOneButMe, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Newspaper here said that the deficiency's were largely related to the roads leading up to the bridge being expanded for more lanes, not the bridges themselves having problems. I imagine it's a similar situation in most other places.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -6/+13It took 50 years for that bridge to collapse. It took 5 hours for you retards to start blaming Bush.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7Whatever chicken little, I'm sure they wouldn't make different signs. It's not 1900 anymore. It's not 1950 anymore. We're smart enough to efficiently communicate infrastructure needs without federal interference. Moreover, the fed bureaucracy just gets in the way of getting stuff done.
- brad3378, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6More money grubbing is all this is.
I just had a recruiter call me today about a Structural Engineering position opening up in Toledo. I suspect that Engineering firms are already salivating at the prospect of they money they'll be making from the recent media hysteria about bridges failing. Of course they have every reason to inflate their numbers! They're going to cry "unsafe!" and meanwhile they'll probably "repair" these bridges with inferior low grade steel made in a smog infested Chinese foundry to save a few bucks. No matter how this all pans out, you can count on one thing: Somebody is going to cash in on it.
I swear the greed in my industry sometimes makes me feel ashamed to call myself an Engineer. - RyanDaRin, on 10/10/2007, -3/+9$188 Billion to actually protect my safety on the road vs.. $448 Billion Spent on an unnecessary war.
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/Cost-of-War/Cost-of-War-3.html - gebx, on 10/10/2007, -5/+11yeah but a quarter of a million people don't walk through your house!
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Its not total hysterics. Bridges are pretty damn safe, but we do have a whole bunch that need a lot of work. Like I said above, I worked for my states DOT and this was a major concern of theirs about a year ago. They were in the process of identifying the ones that needed repairs the most and fixing them.
- LegOfLamb, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Funny... it's like we wait for something to screw up before we worry about it. Plane security was fine until 9/11, emergency response was fine until Hurricane Katrina, and bridges were safe until one collapsed. I'm not saying people should be able to foresee everything, but a little extra caution could have been originally applied. Wonder what the next colossal *****-up will be...
- Dumbledorito, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6So tell me: What is it with Freeper-types and almost all of their logins ending in numbers? Seriously, is it some kind of membership requirement or something?
- Calcularius, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5I'll agree with that the minute I stop giving the Federal Government 1/5 of my income.
- HunterTV, on 10/10/2007, -2/+7If we decided to enslave the retards you wouldn't be saying that.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Eh well this isnt total BS.
I worked for my states DOT for about a year, and we had a major project going tracking the condition of the bridges in our state. It wasent a full blown emergency, but they were well aware that we had many bridges that needed some serious work very soon. Some that were damaged were even closed (smaller bridges, none of the larger ones).
So ya, we have quite a lot of bridges that need some serious work put into them. - smackywentz, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Yeah, you'd think we were all living on one giant bridge the way this article has travesty has been sensationalized.
- walkingdogs, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6We could also use the 30 billion given to israel right now.
But hey, priorities right? /sarcasm - crazzyeddie, on 10/10/2007, -7/+11How about a list so I can avoid all of these deficient bridges?
- ogleby, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4The slaves' owners would still charge the same fees =/
- SenatorPenguin, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Considering that bridges get rated structurally deficient for reasons including paint deficiencies and pothole deficiencies, I'm not too worried.
- Ryosen, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Clearly, the bridge collapse is a conspiracy plot started by the Department of Transportation.
8-2-07 - Never forget! - shunter99, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4It would be like Europe!
- SpectralSounds, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5I'll bet a lot of people died from health related reasons too. So, we should just say that since a lot of people die everyday that we dont need to prevent any deaths?
Corners are cut all the time to make people money. Corners were cut on the bridge that collapsed. Im not saying that it happens a lot, Im saying that it didnt have to happen if someone wasnt greedy. Its better to be safe then sorry. - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -6/+9That's like the ∞ + 1th reason we stopped this ***** war right now
- edebolt, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4thats all that needs to be said. I live in Thailand now and China before. If you live in another country you blame somebody else like the US or the EU. If you live in the US then you blame the President. dateline 2010.. HIllary and Barack blamed for Asteroids bearing down on our planet.... Its an an evil plot.... Hatched by the military industrial complex to impose martial law. Oh the horror
- iplayyouandme, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3One more thing, the Interstate road system was actually built for national defense by President Eisenhower as a national transportation system for the military during the Cold War.
- OBKenobi, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5They've only got like two left.
- snowball69, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Yep, ALL bridges are ALWAYS decaying. The daily management of their decay and requisite remedial action is why we pay civil engineers departments. The date of their construction is of no particular relevance. Every structure has a natural lifecycle and bridge construction and operational management is well-understood (more so than software design) so the spontaneous collapse of a bridge shouldn't be something that happens barring natural catastrophe or maladministration.
The article doesn't accurately specify when the bulk (most) of those bridges were built just that they include SOME recent ones...
"At least 73,533 of 607,363 bridges in the nation, or about 12 percent, were classified as "structurally deficient," including some built as recently as the early 1990s, according to 2006 statistics from the Federal Highway Administration. "
The article doesn't make it clear what scale or type of bridge is being considered. The bulk of these could even be 12 foot span crossings of small streams consisting of little more than a couple of girders with timber cross spans. I suspect this may be the case in very "flat" states where there are few bridges other than those crossing ditches/dykes and streams.
Bridges are always "crumbling" - the article is disingenuous in presenting this as a new and spontaneous phenomena which was not well-understood. The one good point is that it highlights under-investment (presumably in essential preventative maintenance and repairs) - the usual "false economies" which pen-pushers and bureaucrats tend to want to make when diverting public cash into more "useful" projects such as funding wars. - arcarael, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3what is the price of neglecting these bridges? what is the price of catastrophic failure? of search and rescue? of cleanup? of investigation? of lawsuits? of medical expenses? of completely new construction? of money lost to businesses located near the bridge? this list could go on and on... we cannot afford to not fix them. start repairs NOW!
- HunterTV, on 10/10/2007, -3/+6Global War on Bridges
- gadalla, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4I really hate the fact that this country needs a tragedy to happen in order for them to do something about a problem.
- snowball69, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3All bridges require an ongoing program of surveying, maintenance and eventual repair or replacement over their lifecycle. The stuff in this recent media binge is engineered for the consumption of "Sally Soccermom" and "Joe Sixpack" which is rather worrying. It's like we're being asked to believe that someone has only just discovered the everyday work of the civil engineering departments around the world and that no one realised that bridges might be badly designed or need specialised maintenance before.
Any significant structure has "deficiencies" which have to be managed and kept under observation. The Forth rail bridge in Scotland has an inherent "deficiency" in that it requires constant painting all year round and is constantly rusting. Many concrete bridges suffer from poor waterproofing and "concrete cancer". The loading of bridges (esp. in the UK thanks to the EU axle weight limits) is increased beyond the original intended design making the original design inadequate. Structures are often abused and overloaded. Steel bridges rust gradually and suffer perforations and progressive loss of strength in structural members.. Some structures, both steel and concrete were known to have been built with substandard materials due to corruption (e.g. in New York) yet this is known and their integrity managed and controlled.
It indicates either natural disaster or profound management incompetency for a publicly administered bridge to collapse. Most bridges from bygone days are massively over-engineered. This particularly applies to structures from the Victorian era where massive structural redundancy was built in. 20th century concrete structures are another issue however, the fragility of modern concrete structures is known and the spectacular collapse of such has been well documented. However none of this means that a bridge is going to fall down and seems more akin to spreading FUD to panic the public to capitalise on the recent collapse.
http://www.google.com/search?q=why+buildings+fail (buildings and bridges are both structures)
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=why+bridges+fail
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=building+collapses
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=%2B1960s+%2B%22structural+failure%22+%2B%22poor+design%22
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=%2B%22bridge++failure%22+%2B%22poor+maintenance%22 (Bridge failure due to bad maintenance is not a new phenomena)
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=%2B%22bridge++failure%22+%2B%22poor+design%22 (Politics, modernist social trends and faddish or avant-garde design do not mix with bridge safety) - xedd, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4"No matter how this all pans out, you can count on one thing: Somebody is going to cash in on it."
That statement applies best to the warmongering military industrial complex, and their puppets in government who *****-up foreign relations and lead us into endless wars. - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -9/+12So do we borrow almost 2 billion dollars a day to police Iraq?
- Error601, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Nor should they as that's the job of the governors and mayors.
- Tradgedy12, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4pfffft!!!
silly engineers. my god, listening to engineers about bridges would be like listening to generals in war! as we all know, that can do no good for America. - snowball69, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3http://www.film.com/dvds/story/dvdquotablefightclub/11597476/13373466
Jack: A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
Woman on plane: Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?
Jack: You wouldn't believe.
Woman on plane: Which car company do you work for?
Jack: A major one. - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Oh no. In 2010, these morons will still be blaming Bush.
- johney5, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2i was on that bridge about two hours before it fell, no joke. and i would still feel safe driving 35E.
- onedragoneyes, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2So, let me get this straight....one bridge falls somewhere in the US and we should say, "Dammit, man....pull our troops out now! Concrete pylons across the fruited plain are crumbling...we have to fix it and there's no way we can address this issue while our troops are in the field."
You guys are completely nuts. - DaffyDuck, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4http://lifestyle.indiatimes.com/Women/Old_people_find_understanding_jokes_difficult/articleshow/2200681.cms
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