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The crossings are kept standing by engineering design, not supported with brute strength or redundant protections like their more modern counterparts. Bridge regulators call the more risky spans "fracture critical," meaning that if a single, vital component of the bridge is compromised, it can crumple.
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About 18,000 fracture critical bridges were built from the mid-1950s through the late 1970s in an effort to complete the nation's interstate highway system, which was launched under President Dwight Eisenhower, LePatner said in an interview. The fracture critical bridge designs were cheaper than bridges designed with redundancy, he said.
We've become an old, tired, decadent society hell bent on ruinous ideology like Libertarianism where the private sector will not realistically pay to have all these roads built. And, who would want to have to deal with tolls everywhere you go? The problem is there is no money for all these infrastructure projects, because no one wants to tax Wall St. and/or force the Federal Reserve to issue at least $10 trillion in federal credit (not borrowing, credit) at 0% interest to fund these projects. This attitude pervades American society at all levels. Everyone tries to cut corners in this country just to save a penny, yet at the same time we have no problem blowing money away for our own desires
People these days are ridiculous, the bridge that failed a few days ago was inspected months ago and was 100% fine. It didn't fail because of age or because of bad design. If you take a 50 ton block and ram it into the support structure at 50mph something has to give. That bridge is in the water today because of the driver of that truck not paying attention to the height of his load or his support team ahead of him.
Happy? The bridge collapse in Washington is something President Obama has talked about long before it happened but Republicans did not want to support infrastructure development to replace our bridges. They called it Socialism!
We aren't going to survive as a competitive nation if we don't take care or replace our infrastructure.
We've become an old, tired, decadent society hell bent on ruinous ideology like Libertarianism where the private sector will not realistically pay to have all these roads built. And, who would want to have to deal with tolls everywhere you go? The problem is there is no money for all these infrastructure projects, because no one wants to tax Wall St. and/or force the Federal Reserve to issue at least $10 trillion in federal credit (not borrowing, credit) at 0% interest to fund these projects
You leave out the overwhelming amount of money that is spent by our government on sheer stupidity. I honestly believe that most people would have less of a problem with raising taxes if the government showed a bit of fiscal responsibility. As it stands now, raising taxes would be like putting a band-aid on an arterial wound.
I have been saying that since the housing bubble popped, the best way to get America back to work would be to have every bridge repaired or replaced, rail lines upgraded, and city and state infrastructure upgraded.
Wonder where all the money went that was collected for upkeep?
It makes you really wonder. Funny how so many of these bridges were build 60 to 70 years ago when there were far fewer people living here to pay the taxes to build them --- but we've been bringing in and adding hundreds of millions of people to the population and to use these bridges but now can't afford to maintain them.
The governments certainly have more than enough revenues -- the money isn't going for infrastructure.
Yet, these bridges have been standing for many years, even though some of them have been repeatedly damaged by oversized loads.
The problem is not new. The knowledge of the problem is not new. Every Administration we have had since Ike, be it Democrat or Republican, has been aware of the problem, but they always had more important things to spend money on. Just as Congress raided the Social Security Trust Fund, they also raided the Highway Trust Fund (and any other trust fund they could get at) for their pet projects or wars.
Come to think of it, when obama promised funding for "shovel ready" projects, wasn't he talking about the freeway infrastructure? So, I guess it shows that he is no better than his predecessors! Where is the "Hope and Change? He has had 5 years to get these projects going.
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