The New York Times reports that the failure of the Interstate 35W bridge in downtown Minneapolis had many fathers. A study by Gray Plant Mooty, a Minneapolis law firm hired by the state legislature, indicates that the collapse was caused by bad design, bad maintenance, bad inspections and bad enforcement. "In their 84-page report, the investigators laid out a pattern of missed opportunities and policy violations: inspection reports that failed to quantify the severity of corrosion, officials who later said they had not known that their duties included reviewing such inspections and a lack of special provisions for where heavy equipment should be placed for the construction work." Needless to say, the post-tragedy investigation has turned into partisan politics and finger-pointing. “It appears that some of what was happening was due to a lack of funding and communication problems,” said State Representative Bernie Lieder, a Democrat who is co-chairman of the committee that assigned the investigation. “You have to say that the governor bears some responsibility.” Seems to me there's plenty of blame to go around. The "accident" on August 1, 2007 killed thirteen people and injured 145 others.
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Your tax dollars at work.
Is privitization of critical infrastructure any better, i.e. the proposed $12.8 billion lease of the PA Turnpike?
For sale: SUV. Excellent condition. Dropped 50 feet with falling bridge.
I wonder how long we can maintain the American infrastructure in light of rising prices, huge gov’t debt and ever more “must have” gov’t equipment (the rise of must have gadgets to get gov’t work done).
I’m not advocating privatization of essential services (transportation, infrastructure, education and health care), but responsibility in managing it.
I read yesterday in thedailyreckoning.com that the total accumulated debt load on the average American family (through Federal and State government debts and outstanding promises to others which need be paid, but not including their own personal debts, which are massive) amounts to some $600,000 per household. Average assets per household in the country are $70,000.
This means we the people are essentially bankrupted by our government due to the promises given to us to secure a few people retain political power.
Somehow, I suspect that over the next ten years, the problems of our infrastructure are going to get worse, not better.
I was just talking about this to someone not long ago. Our infrastructure was build 50-80 years ago when it was easier to exploit human labor, i.e., there weren’t as many labor laws. Now because of strong unions in the construction industry and because of corruption with both the contractors and the governments, it costs lots and lots of money to basically get nothing done. Under the current conditions we can’t really afford to build new roads and bridges, all we can afford to do is patch potholes. We’re basically screwed.
Miked, you’re looking through the wrong end of the telescope! You’re looking at things from a 2008 perspective, and placing your post-modern expectations onto people living in a different time.
The people who built the infrastructure 50-80 years ago, and even as late as 30 years ago, did not consider themselves as being exploited.
They considered the fact that a paying job provided for a decent living standard for not only themselves, but more than likely, for their stay-at-home-wife and more likely than not, their children.
Many of these construction men knew damn well what life was like elsewhere, because they were lucky enough to have survived the hell-holes of World War II and/or Korea, and came home to a nation which was not nearly completely ruined by warfare. And they knew very well how blessed they were, after living through the depression, that they had a decent job where they could provide for themselves and family.
If you ever get a chance to go to the Mackinaw Bridge (between the lower and upper peninsulas of Michigan), stop at the visitor’s center and have a read about the brave men to built that beautiful span.
But yes, you hit the nail squarely on the head with the comment about the current day situation of extremely high union costs, corruption, etc.
And yeah, I agree; we’re screwed.
menno,
And to add to that, households are getting smaller and more numerous. It’s ugly, ugly, ugly. The good news was that some economists have pretty well proven that the government revenues are pretty much unaffected by tax rates. They get about 20% of GDP no matter what they do. Raise taxes, and you reduce the economy.
miked,
We also have a lot better automation than we used to have. We can dig ourselves out before too long. Besides, anything the unions are involved are usually so inefficient that they attract innovation to reduce labor. Check all those robots on the car line for instance.
Robert,
The word accident signifies a lack of malicious intent. Why do you imply otherwise by putting the word in quotes? I’m sure there was plenty of ineptitude/laziness/carelessness to go around. What’s to be gained by going beyond that?
The initial NTSB report showed that simple required engineering calculations were improperly done on the gusset plates. A thicker gusset plate, or doublers, were needed to meet contemporaneous code. The gusset plates are the flat plates to which the beam frame members were fastened where several came together. The fasteners put a lot of holes in the plates leading to a lot of stress concentrations. Result: insufficient fatigue life – the bridge would last a long time, but not as long as you’d hope.
Also, maintenance is the red-haired bastard stepchild of DOTs. And an ideal place for the pols to pooch money for things they’d rather do. MNDOT, btw, had plenty of $ to do the necessary inspections/maintenance.
As for the donk party member trying to hang it on the current governor, for one cent, name the party affiliation of said governor.
The word accident signifies a lack of malicious intent.
No, it signifies something that is unforeseen or unplanned. I think, in this case, someone could have foreseen the problems with this bridge. I am assuming it was unplanned.
I think a better description would be “negilgent design and upkeep”.
The problem lies in the CYA attitude in government, and that rather than fire incompetent workers, they are either promoted or proceedures are put in place to try to prevent dishonesty and limit the affects of incompetent decisions. The result is that less and less gets done. I believe that most of the field workers, the engineers that actually go out and inspect the infrastructure and make recommendations regarding repairs, replacement, and operations, are competent, take their jobs seriously, and would like to do a good job. However, Suzie Screwup makes a bonehead calculation or quotes a regulation/standard that doesn’t exist, so the Department decides that none of the field staff are competent to direct repairs, etc. and all directives, etc. must be approved by a senior engineer. The result of course is that 75% fewer inspections are performed and the information necessary to protect public health is not provided to the municipality, public works department, etc. Add into that the first point I made that inefficient or plain incompetent workers are frequently promoted either due to politics or in an attempt to get them away from the public and you have a very inefficient, incompetent orginization despite the efforts of some or even most of the field staff.
The red tape also results in much higher construction costs. If the state government is involved in a public works project you can count on it costing 50% more than it would have using private funds. get the federal government involved, Army Corp of Engineers in particular, and you should plan on the cost being over twice what it would have been if the feds weren’t there supervising.
The usual commitees, hindsight analysis and inevitable finger pointing.
We ourselves are reaping what we sow (deserve).
Elected officials skate to victory without having to outline positions or how they will follow-thru.
Current presidential election seems to be over health care and the price of gas. National health care may or may not be a good idea, but if we are unable to manage or pay the upkeep for our bridges than what kind of fantasy has us taking
on on the managerial and financial obligations
of health care.
Local and regional governments snooze while we concern ourselves with the price of gas as if the world oil markets are subject to our own whims on pricing and market forces.
Meanwhile bridges deteriorate. Bridges will be maintained or rebuilt when we make it a priority, express the will and pony up the funds.
What are you willing to pay to avoid this problem? Are you ready for German or Swiss levels of engineering and maintenance? Will you pay the engineers and workers enough? You can require that the engineers have PEs and sign and seal the work. That makes them professionally and personally liable. How about the workers? Can you foresee doing that in a union shop environment? Are you ready to pay to have an engineer watch them like a hawk for every inspection of every type? Will we have enough engineers? Like Barbie says – math is hard and we have too few choosing the field. Will you provide ironclad whistleblower protection if they drop the dime on funding shortfalls and design/build/maintain shortcomings?
We’ve proven the answer for these questions is generally no.
ChuckR – a resident of RI – where crossing a bridge is always a gamble.
How about we put these folks in charge of our healthcare too!
This fourth (yes FOURTH) investigation was performed by lawyers (go ahead and google them)on behalf of the MN dem party controlled state legislature and was conducted largely to justify the massive 6+billion dollar tax increase voted in this spring by the same party (a good portion of which will be redirected to light rail projects).
RF correctly points out that finger pointing is at play here but MN, as a state, has been under the control of the same party for over 40 years. Sadly, the press is falling for this ploy. This is simply the PR machine working as designed and a CYA variation of political three card monty.
RF, you might want to look into WHICH bid MNDOT selected for the replacement bridge (hint: it wasn’t the most cost effective one that met spec.) Furthermore, you might want to find out how many of these same legislators (and a Governor) are big time Ethanol backers to get an even better perspective.
…And we wonder why our bridges are falling down? Who is John Galt?
Dinu :
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:41 am
Your tax dollars at work.
More precisely, your lack of tax dollars at work. The Republican governor of Minnesota vetoed an increase in the gas tax to pay for infrastructure repairs and maintenance (well, not really an increase, just something to keep up with inflation (the tax was in a fixed number of cents per gallon, which, due to inflation, buys less bridge inspections than it used to)), hence one of the reasons the Democrats are blaming him for the disaster.
Ah yes, the incompetence defense.
Look over at public workers pension nightmare. Local gov unit asks actuaries to justify impossible-to-pay-for worker benefits increases, the actuaries take the fee and write some lies, unfended benefits are granted, then when things fall apart, the elected official defense is ” we are incompetent so its not our fault. Please sue the actuary.”
Similar thing here.
Nice try, Geotpf.
The MNDOT had ample funds to inspect and maintain or even replace this bridge. A tax increase is always welcomed by politicians and tax consumers, but, at the time, even the St. Paul Trib had trouble concocting a way to blame the governor.
For extra credit, name the dollar amount expended on the Toonerville Trolley, ah, I mean the Hiawatha light rail line, and where the funds came from. Extra extra credit, provide operating costs vs ridership ticket revenue. OK, I’ll spill the beans. $302M from the DOT for one corridor not useful for most who live in the Twin Cities. Three million trips per year at between $1.50 and $2.00 per trip, versus operating cost of $15M. You do the math. (Source of the latter – Minnesotans for LRT website – who apparently can’t do the math.)
But it could be that with gas prices where they are that enough people will pony up the immense build cost for more corridors and provide the up to 60% operating subsidies until critical mass is reached.
Well, an awful lot of the comments so far have been knee-jerk, anti-government “ignorance.”
A few things on more of a “factual” side begin with how the classification of bridge conditions are not press-release-friendly at all, as probably MOST of the bridges we drive over every day are classified as “structurally deficient.” But, basically, this term essentially means that a bridge is wearing, and then there is a numerical value assigned to that classification that truly gives you a good idea of the bridge’s actual condition. This score goes from a high of 100 to a low of 0, and there are probably thousands of bridges somewhere around “halfway” on that scale. Still, there are bridges with scores under 5 that are still in regular use.
That said, though — I don’t know what the rating on this bridge was at the time of its collapse.
I think the second big issue here is that CONSTRUCTION WORK WAS BEING DONE on the bridge at the time of the collapse. Once again, though — I don’t know if this work had anything to do with improving the bridge structure’s condition — they could have just been paving some lanes, for all I know.
I think the New York Times article showed a vitally important issue, though — how there was a very abnormal amount of weight centered on the bridge’s center span at the time. Otherwise, I just couldn’t understand how a bridge like this could go down — the state of bridge inspection these days should have structural improvement work done long before there would be any chance of an actual bridge failure.
It goes back to that bridge classification rating system — at the rating I presume this bridge had, it was probably expected to continue in safe operation for decades to come — WITHOUT anything resembling emergency structure improvement work.
So, it sure seems to me, that “there had to be some kind of abnormal situation” on the bridge — something other than “normal everyday traffic,” that led to the collapse. And, it appeared that there was something like five times the weight (as compared to “normal”) centered not only on the center span, but also centered on ONE SIDE of that span. And that may have been the “straw that broke the bridge’s back.”
It’s hard to know whether construction crews working on bridges even think in terms of the concentration of weight on bridge spans that they might be making — it may be the kind of thing that nobody ever thought much about before, until an accident like this happened.
As for “taxes” and money and such, yes, it costs a lot of money to construct road projects these days, and tax-hating Americans simply haven’t been willing to fund our highway systems adequately. Bridges are incredibly expensive, especially due to environmental concerns, as you don’t just drive bulldozers into rivers and such without controlling any environmental effects they might have.
The anti-union types are wrong, wrong, wrong. What percent of a new bridge do you suppose has to do with “labor” costs? Compared to raw materials such as concrete, steel, asphalt, and so on, “labor” is a relative pittance. And beyond simple labor and materials, the other issues that raise infrastructure costs have mostly to do with “planning” and “the environment.” Gone are the times when states just plowed freeways through cities and towns, wherever they pleased — now there’s a whole planning process to make sure that there is more rather than less agreement in how the final project will be constructed. And again, environmental issues raise a project’s cost significantly — you don’t just get out your Wagner and start spray-painting a bridge, for instance — you can’t just let that spray drop down into the river, for crissakes!!!
Finally, we built most of our freeway system with a huge push of federal money back in the 1950’s, ending mostly in the early 1960’s. And much of our other highway systems were built in that era as well, connecting up to the freeways. Very simply, the state of the art in bridge technology from back then built bridges that were good for about 50 years — and these bridges ARE wearing out.
But, yes, replacing all of those bridges is incredibly expensive — my guess would be that most states would need to spend something like ten times the amount of all of the state and federal funds they spend in an average year, just to replace all of their 1950’s-era bridges. That’s what my state is doing, thanks to some “brave” state legislators who decided to “fund” that kind of extra money just for bridges — except that the money sure didn’t come from increased gas taxes or anything like that. Nope, these brave legislators decided to “sell bonds” to cover the work.
Didja ever charge anything to a credit card? Same thing. So, some day in the future, probably when our unchanged gas taxes are so pathetic that we can’t get much of anything done, we’ll have to spend a third of it to pay back the bonds, for something like 20 years. THAT should be interesting. Hopefully, the price of gas will be so high that we won’t be able to drive on the unkempt roads, anyway. And you’ll HAVE to buy a big SUV with true off-road capability, just to forge your way to the office every morning.
Ahh, yes, the anti-mass-transit viewpoint:
chuckR :
The MNDOT had ample funds to inspect and maintain or even replace this bridge.
Unfortunately, presumably the rest of the state expected to get some money for their projects over the five-to-ten year period MNDOT would have had to dedicate every dollar to replace that bridge.
For extra credit, name the dollar amount expended on the Hiawatha light rail line, and where the funds came from.
You said it, or at least partly: Over $300 from the federal Department of Transportation. “Free money,” if your state can come up with some funds to match it. Include the federal CMAQ funds, and it’s up to $350 million. Looks like the state chipped in about $100 million, which isn’t bird feed, true. What’s replacing that bridge gonna cost, though — a few billion? Probably mostly from federal funds as well. Your $100 light rail money is PEANUTS compared to that bridge.
I guess there’s hope, as you’re starting to “get it” here:
But it could be that with gas prices where they are that enough people will pony up the immense build cost for more corridors and provide the up to 60% operating subsidies until critical mass is reached.
Yes, exactly. Have you noticed that the price of gas is skyrocketing? Have you noticed that we keep on driving, anyway? For gosh sakes, what other alternative do we have?!?? Well, “light rail” might be one, if you can get some forward-thinking people to get it started, get it built, and get it to run in enough neighborhoods to make it useful.
The only way — THE ONLY WAY, FOLKS — we’re going to get out of the oil-addicted mess we’re in is to find ALTERNATIVES to driving oil-burning personal vehicles everywhere we go. And that’s why government-types — yes, actual people in actual government — decided to put money aside to fund mass-transit projects. Oh, sure, many people in states like Minnesota are dead-set against it, but the federal Department of Transportation has been reserving funds for mass transit projects for over a decade. And if Minnesota doesn’t want a chunk of that, no worries — plenty of other states will be glad to grab Minnesota’s unwanted share.
In the end, just think about what you’re saying here — utterly chastising a system that you’ve spent $100 million on, which might eventually help this country get out of our oil-importing nightmare, while you’re oh-so-willing to spend several BILLION dollars on a bridge, which would just encourage our race towards ever-increasing fuel prices.
For the record, I believe you’ll find plenty of press accounts these days about how cities that HAVE built useful light rail systems are seeing record ridership as the price of gasoline keeps on going up. Yes, there IS a point where people will get out of their cars, and take a much more energy-efficient method to commute to work.
The anti-union types are wrong, wrong, wrong. What percent of a new bridge do you suppose has to do with “labor” costs? Compared to raw materials such as concrete, steel, asphalt, and so on, “labor” is a relative pittance.….
Unfortunately that is not true. I certainly can’t be classified as anti labor – see my past posts – but the inefficiency that is involved in union construction projects is legendary. I am involved in design and construction of various projects, both public and private, and the pathetic pace of some trades is incredible. Generally, the electrical trade sets the stage and “runs” the site. All the work rules, the “its not my job” BS, and uncaring attitude account for at least 30% of the labor time that is wasted. At least most trades do high quality work. At the pace they move, though, how could they not. This is not to be confused with job site safety issues. The vast majority of accidents occur on non-union sites. The unions do make sure that safety is taken to account, which is a good thing.
thoots
The replacement cost of the bridge is around $250M. In the time it took to speculate it would cost a few billion, you could have found the info in a link from the STrib and other sources. Google is your friend.
I don’t have a problem with how another state spends it money ( I’m not a MN resident), but if this is such a good idea, then why can’t it be approached directly instead of snaffling gas tax money many Minnesotans might reasonably have thought would be used to protect them when they crossed a bridge?
A useful light rail system for the Twin Cities would likely cost a few billion. You would easily need several corridor lines like the single existing one and probably a ring or two. The cost is $300 million + for a single line no matter where the money comes from. The 60% operating subsidy of the existing line must mean it isn’t terribly useful yet, don’t you think?
It might be a good idea, but I resent when those in government assume they know what’s best for all of us. Mostly they don’t.
Wow, a guy screams about the ignorance of everyone’s anti government posts, and then has few if any facts…
…Wait for it…
…W a i t f o r i t . . .
…He must be a product of government schools!!
Thank You All, Good Night.
For want of a nail the shoe was lost
For want of a shoe the horse was lost…
There was a time when I read summaries of all bills and amendments thereto in our state legislature. It led to asking myself, “Who is the most expensive person on the state payroll?” Might it be the House committee chair who loosened state pension formulas and eligibility requirements (such as giving teachers service credit for years worked in other states!)? Millions of unfunded pension liabilities resulted from his benevolence to select groups and, sometimes, to individuals.
Finally I concluded the winner was the state senator who did the trucking industry’s bidding by wangling higher limits on truck weight. The extra wear and tear on roads and bridges has and will continue to cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Probably a really good idea to avoid walking across the Mackinaw Bridge this Memorial Day weekend, an annual event.
I’ll put it this way. It’s a very understressed bridge with very good maintenance, only about 1/2 way through it’s life-span (pun intended, sorry, I couldn’t resist).
But having thousands of people walking across the bridge puts a massive weight onto it, much more than seen with normal traffic. Sounds counter-intuitive, but it is correct.
Put another way, a 4000 pound (roughly average) car with say 3 car-lengths between it and the car in front of it, even on a heavy traffic day, adds up to significantly less weight than thousands of 200 pound human beings walking at close quarters. You might, for example, get twenty 200 pound humans in the area of one 4000 pound car. So that works out roughly the same. But we’re talking about people walking en masse – so we’re looking at a potential for 400% to 500% the average load on Big Mac on the annual walk.
I avoid this walk every year and hope that one day, the Big Mac doesn’t simply cry “uncle” while there are thousands of pedestrians walking it.
OK,
The replacement cost of the bridge is around $250M
Yep, that’s a ton less than what I expected. Sorry. I’m mentally comparing it to other urban interstate bridges, and many of those are in the two-to-five billion dollars range. I suppose this is a relatively “smaller” bridge, with really no piers “in the water,” which increases a bridge’s cost dramatically. Also, I suppose there isn’t much “traffic” under this bridge — no deep-draft ocean-going vessels. So, yeah, I didn’t think about that.
Still, far-sighted communities that have developed light rail systems over the past couple of decades ARE reaping benefits from them now. Sure, the anti-mass-transit types were just as venomously against those systems as they were developed, but now those systems are taking a substantial amount of vehicles off of the road systems in those areas. Four-dollar-per-gallon gas really helps change “some” minds about the value of light rail transit systems….
I am actually a proponent of light rail, and would like to see it replace the park and ride as well as many other routes where there is high bus traffic or otherwise a high demand to go between two places.
I do believe that rail can alter development and therefore make sense in the long run despite a seemingly poor ROI in the near term.
Having said all that, so far, Houston has blown it badly. First thing they did was put in a rail where it was really challenging to seperate it from other traffic. Then they did an extrmely poor job of layout.
My advice is to put rail in where it is most obvious first. Then do the challenging parts after you prove that people will use it.
Lastly, buildings and neighborhoods that are distressed are the BEST places to condemn for routes, but presently in this country, poor people who own blighted property have some strange immunity to emminent domain, while responsible owners mostly get screwed.