What is sad, is the state of roads and bridges in this country!:mad:

The first Inter-State was under DDE as Presidents Adm.

It was started for Military situations and was begun in Ks. I-70.

So, it was expanded to what We know as the Super Highways of today that We all enjoy!

But, they are going to crap and who pays for it?

Either We do or there are deaths such as these and it will not be the last!

States raise taxes and miss use them, period! Oh don't forget about poor contractors and shoddy construction such as the Big Did in Boston!:mad:

Scarry isn't it?

How many Bridges or shitty Highways do you drive on?:mad:

Am I the only one who thinks about this?

As I have traveled across the country, I have wondered how much our infrastructure cost to build, and how much it would be to replace it.

It was really brought home to me when I was living in New York City and considering how old everything looks.

The collapse of the steam tunnel there, and now this bridge episode in Minnesota have really brought those thoughts home.

The overall situation is really scary.

How in the world can we ever replace this stuff as it just simply wears out?

I was under the impression that they WERE fixing it when it collapsed. It seems to me that the blame here lies with the company who was orchestrating the update/repair of the bridge. I find it very suspicious that this bridge collapsed after being worked on and was scheduled to have more work done, when it has stayed up and running for years. Someone dropped the ball on this one...

I'll leave it to the engineering folks to figure that out.

I'm talking about replacing the stuff -- not sticking on a band-aid.

Sooner or later, band-aids don't help anymore.

Well, unfortunately, people have to travel on those roads, so it is difficult to simply replace bridges and roads altogether. I am picturing city/state government attempting to replace roads and bridges, and people flipping out...

That's another piece of the equation.

It sure is--and how about people debating raising taxes in order to replace all of the bridges and roads? It's hard enough to get people to accept the taxes they already have. I personally wouldn't mind paying higher taxes for these things, but a lot of people would have a HUGE problem with it. I don't even want to think about how people would react if their government started redoing every bridge, overpass, or highway in their area... I have construction on the road where I live, and they are ripping apart people's yards, having to pay police to direct traffic, and real estate isn't selling because no one wants to live by the construction. Just thinking about a project that massive makes me cringe... :eek:

CBS-Radio had a report the other day that put the cost at $5,500.00 per person in the US. Not sure if that was everyone or "taxpaying Adults".
It was over a Trillion dollars.
As someone else posted, states have used monies that were "dedicated" to road/highway/bridge repair for everything else.

As we as voters have been "taught" over the past several years to think that no tax raises or lower taxes would be good for us all.

Search "Tappan Zee Bridge" under both news and web for insight.

I live in the tri-state area. Which article, exactly, are you referring to?

Just about any of them in the past few years.
Has been in the papers everyday since Minneapolis.
Many stories about: the need to replace it.
The hows and whys.
Those for and against every how and why.
The hows and whys of just repairing it to keep
it in one piece until it is replaced.

Bottom line: The bridge was made on the cheap, has out lasted
its life expectancy, and falling apart everyday.

True--but like I said earlier, who is going to pay for this? Will budgets be re-adjusted in order to do so? We'll see what happens. I have no idea, I just know that the situation in Minneapolis has sparked a lot of energy on the topic.

Random thoughts here...

When they replaced the Rouge River Bridge in Detroit (part of I-75), from what I can remember, they built the bridge and rebuilt part of the freeway and then connected those to the old freeway. You can still see a draw bridge next to the original. I think they did this with the big Zilwaukee bridge over the Saginaw River up north. This can lead to minimal traffic disruption. It's not like the old bridge was out of commission the whole time the new one was being built. That was happening on either I-75 or 280 in Toledo also.

I saw a poll on some news channel yesterday "Should we pay for health care or fixing infrastructure like bridges?" My answer would be BOTH, instead of some of the other junk we pay for. Maybe that bridge to nowhere shoulda been somewhere else.

Infrastructure, if done right, seems like it should last a very long time. Pyramids? Isn't the basic infrastructure in Europe much older than ours? It seems like if it is maintained properly, it could last.

I agree that structurally deficient probably means something very different to civil engineers than it sounds to us. In my experience with inspections in health care, it is their job to find deficiencies and they will find some deficiency no matter what. The level of deficiency will vary and the number will vary, but every hospital in the country gets Type I and Type II recommendations from JCAHO. (Type I being more major than Type II). If a bad thing happened at any given hospital and those accreditation inspection reports were pulled, it would sound bad to lay people, I think.

There's been an ongoing project near AGDee and I that has closed a stretch of I75. They've been replacing all the overpasses.... actually tearing them all down and replacing them. They did the same on our Southfield Expressway. While it is an inconvenience between taking different routes, and dealing with traffic in our neighborhoods, you really appreciate it when you see stories like this.

So it's either people flipping out, or people dying. I'd rather people flip out.

St. Louis decided that they were going to completely redo 64/40 because of its age. While I can't remembr if they decided for sure, the options were 3-4 years if they did it in pieces, and 2 years if they just shut the whole thing down. Either way traffic was going to suck, so you might as well go all out. Yeah, people are going to get upset but usually you tell them "we do this or you will die" and they go along with it. Interestingly they'd just worked on all the overpasses on 40 before announcing this. I'm willing to bet they found a few they didn't like.

Also when it comes to bridges, you're not always suck rebuilding a bridge in the same place. Hannibal, MO built a new bridge across the Mississippi some distance away from the old one. That was easier than trying to renovate the old one or completely shut down travel across the river.