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Glad it happened at 3AM and not during a rush hour. Terrible tragedy.
When they rebuilt the sunshine skyway bridge in Tampa they built these LARGE concrete islands to protect the supports from these sorts of events. I can't say that would have saved the bridge but worth knowing.
Here is the google earth of the Tampa bridge and all the round circles are the concrete islands.
The span that replaces the Key Bridge will definitely have islands around the piers in the water that bracket the shipping channel.
I note that there were barriers surrounding the high-voltage electric transmission lines paralleling the bridge but none around the bridge supports themselves. This bridge opened in 1977. Did MDOT MTA not believe that ship strikes might be a problem when the Key Bridge was designed?
I also suspect that the span that replaces this bridge will be cable-stayed. And after the search-and-recovery operation ends and they get the ship out of the way, Priority One will be to clear the span from the shipping channel. The Port of Baltimore is also the biggest auto transshipment port on the East Coast.
And according to the reports I hear, the distress call from the ship did arrive in time for officials to stop traffic from crossing the bridge before the ship hit it. The cars you can see on the center span in the video were probably the MDOT crews' vehicles.
President Biden has pledged that the Feds will pick up the full cost of rebuilding the Key Bridge. I'll wager that there are people right now in the MDOT MTA offices on the phone and at drafting tables.
(MTA here = Maryland Transportation Administration, the division of MDOT that builds and manages the state's toll roads and toll crossings)
Glad it happened at 3AM and not during a rush hour. Terrible tragedy.
When they rebuilt the sunshine skyway bridge in Tampa they built these LARGE concrete islands to protect the supports from these sorts of events. I can't say that would have saved the bridge but worth knowing.
Here is the google earth of the Tampa bridge and all the round circles are the concrete islands.
Glad it happened at 3AM and not during a rush hour. Terrible tragedy.
When they rebuilt the sunshine skyway bridge in Tampa they built these LARGE concrete islands to protect the supports from these sorts of events. I can't say that would have saved the bridge but worth knowing.
Here is the google earth of the Tampa bridge and all the round circles are the concrete islands.
There will be no miracle rebuilding of this bridge like we have seen in other bridge incidents over the past few years. They will need to build a bridge similar to what you mentioned and that will take time. Plus I'm sure they will want to take the time to make it look nice since it will be there for at least a half century or longer.
The time it takes to build a modern bridge over a large span depends on the bridge's length and size. Smaller bridges, such as pedestrian or rural bridges, can take several months to a year to build. Medium-sized bridges can take 1-3 years to complete, and large bridges that span major rivers or valleys can take several years or even a decade to build.
The real issue is the port traffic, trucks etc, that use this port daily. There is no easy route for them to get to and from the port.
(MTA here = Maryland Transportation Administration, the division of MDOT that builds and manages the state's toll roads and toll crossings)
Sorry for being "that guy," but the agency to which you refer is the Maryland Transportation Authority, stylized as MdTA. (Note that the "d" is lower case.) This is to avoid confusion with the Maryland Transit Administration, known as MTA. Both of them are under the umbrella of the Maryland Department of Transportation, MDOT.
There will be no miracle rebuilding of this bridge like we have seen in other bridge incidents over the past few years. They will need to build a bridge similar to what you mentioned and that will take time. Plus I'm sure they will want to take the time to make it look nice since it will be there for at least a half century or longer.
The time it takes to build a modern bridge over a large span depends on the bridge's length and size. Smaller bridges, such as pedestrian or rural bridges, can take several months to a year to build. Medium-sized bridges can take 1-3 years to complete, and large bridges that span major rivers or valleys can take several years or even a decade to build.
The real issue is the port traffic, trucks etc, that use this port daily. There is no easy route for them to get to and from the port.
There is still road access to the port from I-95 and I-895, plus from I-695 from points north. The only curtailment of access, admittedly a big one, is from points south via the Key Bridge.
The ships that are currently at port, which I believe there are about 30 of them at this time, can continue to be unloaded and their cargoes can be distributed to where they're going. It's what happens after that, that's the issue. Those ships aren't going anywhere, and inbound ships aren't going to be able to dock, until the wreckage of the bridge is cleared away. There are two cruise ships out of Baltimore that are currently sailing, but when they come back, where are they going to go? Unknown at this time.
The Port of Baltimore has been facing a looming issue of ever-larger ships not being able to fit under the Key Bridge and the Bay Bridge. In particular, its days as a cruise port are numbered. Only the two smallest and oldest classes of Royal Caribbean ships can fit under these bridges. Once those ships are retired (probably in another 10-15 years at most), RCI will have no choice but to abandon Baltimore as a cruise port.
If there is a silver lining to this tragedy, it's that a replacement bridge could be built high enough to accommodate larger ships. Or, they could replace it with a tunnel, thus achieving the same end. Admittedly, there's still the Bay Bridge to deal with. But at least one piece of the puzzle could be dealt with. If they replace the Key Bridge with another one of the same clearance, they'll be sealing the port's doom as a cruise port.
Horrible. I suppose that it happening in the early morning hours at least meant that there were fewer commuters on the bridge than there would have been during the day.
Poor workers mending potholes...I was more surprised that the whole bridge went down...I thought they were stronger than this..
There will be no miracle rebuilding of this bridge like we have seen in other bridge incidents over the past few years. They will need to build a bridge similar to what you mentioned and that will take time. Plus I'm sure they will want to take the time to make it look nice since it will be there for at least a half century or longer.
The time it takes to build a modern bridge over a large span depends on the bridge's length and size. Smaller bridges, such as pedestrian or rural bridges, can take several months to a year to build. Medium-sized bridges can take 1-3 years to complete, and large bridges that span major rivers or valleys can take several years or even a decade to build.
The real issue is the port traffic, trucks etc, that use this port daily. There is no easy route for them to get to and from the port.
That's true, and it will increase traffic a lot on the two highway tunnels under Baltimore Harbor.
These politicians (you know who) keep talking about infrastructure, yet these east coast cities are lacking important infrastructure. This crossing should have had two bridges, both larger and wider than this one.
Glad it happened at 3AM and not during a rush hour. Terrible tragedy.
When they rebuilt the sunshine skyway bridge in Tampa they built these LARGE concrete islands to protect the supports from these sorts of events. I can't say that would have saved the bridge but worth knowing.
Here is the google earth of the Tampa bridge and all the round circles are the concrete islands.
I agree. I've driven across that bridge at rush hour and the number of vehicular fatalities would have been catastrophic. I'm still stunned at how fragile the bridge seemed at its collapse. As much as I've complained about driving over the very steep Rte. 301 bridge from VA to MD over the Potomac (the old Harry Nice bridge), at least it seemed a lot more sturdy, even when they were doing endless construction on it.
There will be no miracle rebuilding of this bridge like we have seen in other bridge incidents over the past few years. They will need to build a bridge similar to what you mentioned and that will take time. Plus I'm sure they will want to take the time to make it look nice since it will be there for at least a half century or longer.
The time it takes to build a modern bridge over a large span depends on the bridge's length and size. Smaller bridges, such as pedestrian or rural bridges, can take several months to a year to build. Medium-sized bridges can take 1-3 years to complete, and large bridges that span major rivers or valleys can take several years or even a decade to build.
The real issue is the port traffic, trucks etc, that use this port daily. There is no easy route for them to get to and from the port.
The 3.6 mile long Ravenel Bridge in Charleston, SC crosses the harbor including the main shipping channel...they have islands made of sand and rocks that the support pillars...any big ship will run aground before getting near the support structures of the bridge.
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