The collapse of the bridge in Minnesota earlier this week has everyone worried about the state of the bridges around here. According to this Virginian Pilot story, 15 Hampton Roads bridges carry the same “structurally deficient” rating as the one in MN.
“If they were not safe, we’d close them,” said Malcom T. Kerley , VDOT’s chief engineer. “It’s as simple as that.”
To remain open, bridges deemed structurally deficient often have weight restrictions and heightened maintenance of components that are showing wear, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
I don’t normally travel any of the bridges cited in the story. They are all on “arterial and secondary roads,” not on the major interstates.
I guess we have to trust that VDOT’s assessment of the safety of the bridges is correct. We certainly don’t have the transportation dollars to replace them all.
The question, then, is did we have the transportation dollars to correctly assess the infrastructure?
(This is one issue that I’d be happy to see politicians start flailing about. Perhaps they could give the Oogaboogaa Terrists are Coming So Buy My Constituent’s Product thing a rest. Our basic infrastructure – nationwide – is seriously neglected.)
Posted by MB | Friday, August 3, 2007, 10:21 amI’ve asserted for a while that these things keep happening as a natural result of modern conservative-style government. Unless we do something fast as a nation, a kind of new New Deal, it’s going to get much worse. And distracting us by telling us terr’ists are more of a danger to us is the worst possible thing they could do.
Posted by Brad | Friday, August 3, 2007, 11:00 amI’d like to blame conservatives for this one, too, but maintenance is something everyone neglects. New construction is glamorous. It creates bright, shiny things that weren’t there previously. It creates opportunities for ribbon-cutting ceremonies and gives you public objects to name after old cronies and contributors. Maintenance, on the other hand, just eats money and leaves you with what you had before. It takes real foresight and leadership to push maintenance projects.
Posted by Randy Klear | Friday, August 3, 2007, 11:41 amSo the press stories are already predictably scrambling for a way to blame Bush on the bridge collapse. We are to believe in some ridiculous stories that Bush is responsible even though we know that bridge maintenance as part of infrastructure development is a locally managed issue. Let’s look at how the $$ for this are being spent on a local level.
Oh and this just in…..Reid, Pelosi, and the rest of the ‘sky is falling” crowd get in front of a camera today and say they will get to the bottom on this. Oh god, this could be more distraction and comedy TV from our wonderful government.
Oh and Brad would have us think that “conservative-style” government is the root cause, even though this bridge is 40 years old and has been through more than several “liberal style” governments. I agree Brad, let’s all turn our attention to bridges and roads and just stop worrying about terrorists, since its obvious the world is perfectly safe. Yes, let’s happily turn our president’s attention to naive happy little bridge building and forget this whole “oogaboogaa terrorist” distraction. Makes sense to me….lmfao
Posted by Michael | Friday, August 3, 2007, 12:51 pmI think that I’d cast my lot somewhere between Brad and Randy. To be sure, infrastructure has been neglected through all sorts of administrations (and my dear Minnesota has, until very recently, been a bastion of reliably descent and kindhearted liberalism). So it’s not an exclusively Republican issue. But I do think that the relentless pounding from the right on low taxes low taxes low taxes has lead to the sorts of budget pressures that result in failing infrastructure.
Posted by MB | Friday, August 3, 2007, 6:01 pm“If they were not safe, we’d close them,” said Malcom T. Kerley , VDOT’s chief engineer. “It’s as simple as that.”
Hmmm… Weren’t these the same folks who couldn’t get the doors raised which caused the midtown tunnel to fill with water a couple of years ago… AND the same folks who were supposed to supervise the testing of those doors…AND the same folks that got the elevation and drainage wrong on I-64 over in the Hampton area?
Hmmm… It doesn’t sound “as simple as that”! I’ve lost that warm and fuzzy feeling… We have creditability and trust issues. How simple is that to regain taxpayers confidence?
Posted by BS | Saturday, August 4, 2007, 9:25 pmOkay, everybody… politics aside, bottom line is simply a matter of maintenance. VDOT does have a maintenance department, doesn’t it? I worked for a company who built state roads for many years under VDOT control, and I’m sure that VDOT maintenance people were on those jobs. I know I didn’t just imagine this. So, why are they not out there doing the ‘maintenance’ work they are being paid to do?
I don’t really believe that the person in the White House, regardless of their political party affiliation, can be blamed for the lack of local and state projects not being maintained properly. It would be a long stretch to make that assumption.
It looks like a ‘pass the buck’ situation. Nobody wants to take the blame, and the public is left to second guess just who is suppose to be responsible when things like this go wrong.
Posted by Graylady | Sunday, August 5, 2007, 11:12 amVDOT is doing the maintenance work it is paid to do. The problem is that nobody, and I mean nobody, is really willing to budget what it takes for full road maintenance. To do so would mean revealing the true costs of our automobile economy, and no one wants to face up to that.
Posted by Randy Klear | Sunday, August 5, 2007, 12:35 pmDing.
Posted by MB | Sunday, August 5, 2007, 4:53 pm