[NYTr] Crumbling empire: 77, 000 bridges in US have structural problems

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Simon McGuinness

The Irish Times - Aug 4, 2007
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2007/0804/1186123302724.html

77,000 bridges in US have structural problems

by Ewen MacAskill in Washington

US: About 77,000 bridges across the US share the same "structurally
deficient" rating as the one that collapsed over the Mississippi in
Minnesota, it emerged yesterday.

Transport specialists said billions of dollars would be needed to
replace the bridges, many of which were built 40 to 50 years ago and
were coming to the end of their life.

Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty said: "I think anybody who looks at the
national picture, the national statistics, and says that we don't have a
problem would be naive. We have a major problem."

But the federal government and the public over the last few decades have
proved unwilling to pay for the upkeep through substantial rises in
petrol tax or more road and bridge tolls.

The bridge collapsed on Wednesday during the evening rush hour, claiming
five lives. The police said yesterday that eight people were missing,
reducing earlier estimates of 20-30.

There are 756 other bridges in the US with a near-identical design to
the Minnesota one. But engineers insisted yesterday that the relatively
low death toll vindicated the bridge design.

Professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern
University in Illinois Joseph Schofer said the bridge's underlying arch
truss stopped heavy pieces of steel from falling on to vehicles after
the collapse.

The federal authorities, responding to concern about the thousands of
bridges designated as structurally deficient, insisted that the
Minneapolis collapse had been an "anomaly".

President George Bush, who was widely criticised for staying on holiday
at his Crawford ranch in Texas after Hurricane Katrina devastated New
Orleans two years ago, is to visit the bridge site today.

Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, said that domestic
programmes, such as replacing ageing infrastructure, had been
short-changed because of the billions being spent on the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq.

"Since 9/11 we have taken our eye off the ball," he said.

The Democrats had proposed spending $631 million more on federal highway
safety than Mr Bush budgeted for but he had threatened to veto the
proposal.

William Wilkins, of Trip, a transport think-tank, estimated that $65
billion would be needed to replace the ageing bridges.

An inspection of the collapsed bridge in the 1990s found cracks caused
by fatigue and corrosion and these were repaired.

Dan Dorgan, the state bridge engineer, speaking to reporters at the site
yesterday, said a recent study had raised concerns about cracks. The
state had a choice of adding steel plates or carrying out a further
inspection, and had opted for the latter.

"We thought we had done all we could. Obviously something went terribly
wrong," he said.

C 2007 Guardian Service