[quote]taylorsj wrote:
I work for the state, so I understand your frustration. They seem to adopt the philosophy of why spend money on something that doesn’t immediately increase economic productivity or gain political influence.
If spending 10 million dollars only keeps things the same (in this case scores of people remaining alive), then why not spend 10 million dollars on something that can make change like buying antique street lamps for the entire historic district or building an obnoxiously large museum, ignoring the fact that it’s a flood zone which won’t allow for any exhibits on the first floor. [/quote]
You’re absolutely right, yo. The mere building of the interstate highway system was a very contentious issue, and they had to pitch it as being a “national defense system” and name it after Eisenhower to push it through (and no, the highways were not designed to land bombers on, that was a product of the media glorifying the highway’s national defense capability).
People were more concerned about the absurd notion of driving tanks to meet the Soviet landing force in North Carolina than the trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars the highways could generate as the backbone of the American economy.
And to the other poster who mentioned the growth in northern urban areas, you are spot on. That’s the root of all the infrastructure problems, no one could have forseen the astronomic growth to come in the post WW2 boom and no one wants to spend the money to fix it. Maintenance is expensive, unglamorous, and pisses off motorists.
And if they did, and originally planned to build the highways to handle this fore casted volume of traffic, it would have been way too expensive to even consider back in the 1950’s.
[quote]tGunslinger wrote:
Oklahoma, my home state, has some of the worst bridges in the country; they’re all so old and structurally deficient.
Our state legislators have just looked the other way and prayed that they wouldn’t fall. The Minnesota bridge was a tragedy, but hopefully it’ll shake our legislators to their senses and they’ll start funding bridge repair.
What happened in Minnesota could very easily happen in Oklahoma tomorrow.[/quote]
well then after all of this lovely talk about bridges abuot to bust I’ll be flooring it over every bridge I go on! Damn that’s going to be a lot of tickets driving into Chicago…
[quote]Donut62 wrote:
This is the type of incident to wake people up, it’s just unfortunate that so people have to die everytime America needs it.
[/quote]
What’s really unfortunate is that this will continue because Congress can’t kick their pork habit and spend money on legitimate needs. The bridges are just the tip of the iceberg. The NYC steam rupture a couple of weeks ago is just another example of the entire infrastructure crumbling without the government taking the necessary action to make repairs.
Your description of engineers begging for money to fix this stuff and then seeing it go to tadpole spawning projects is, unfortunately, all to believable.
[quote]taylorsj wrote:
I work for the state, so I understand your frustration. They seem to adopt the philosophy of why spend money on something that doesn’t immediately increase economic productivity or gain political influence.
[/quote]
For a politician (either party), maybe losing a few lives in a bridge collapse is no big deal. Now they will have to rebuild the bridge but in the meantime they have been able to grease the skids of political expediency using taxpayer money. A few lives is a small price to pay to maintain power. Time to vote the scumbags out.
[quote]Donut62 wrote:
Maintenance is expensive, unglamorous, and pisses off motorists.
[/quote]
Too true. Given this incident I’ll make sure to stop yelling at the guys working on the American Legion bridge (VA-MD, I-495) on my way home every day.
I used to drive over that bridge every day when I went to the UofM. Although the population of Minneapolis itself has probably decreased since it was built (with everyone migrating to the suburbs), the bridge really did take a pounding.
There was a high volume of heavy trucks and 18-wheelers on 35W and a constant gridlock of cars driving up from the suburbs to get downtown or to the UofM.
I love Minneapolis. It’s my favorite city I’ve lived in and I feel bad for those affected.
This will be an opportunity for the Twin Cities to shine as an example to the rest of the country. We can keep pointing the finger and trying to place blame but that isn’t what Minnesotans are about. Clean-up and restoration will go like clockwork because that is how we Minnesotans roll.
The current political “wisdom” is that our government thinks more government intervention could have prevented this–which presupposes the fact that government bureaucracy is absolutely infallible. The fact is bridges will collapse because humans are not perfect; and no amount of government can fix that.