Unburied Remains

The remains of the 35W bridge are still sitting on the west bank of the Mississippi River. Like some twisted remains of a giant picked clean by carrion eaters.

A few months ago, en route to my first attendance of the local chapter of the AIHA, I was thinking "... north on 35W, east to ... hey, oh my god, this is the new bridge!"

The bridge in the back-right (although it's not exactly obvious that it is a bridge - the horizontal line) is the Washington Street Bridge that spans the river between the East and West Bank campuses of Rodent U. My bus/bike crosses it every day, and the rusting wreckage seems so pathetically lost. Like the NTSB or DoT forgot it, the stuffed toy under the bed gathering dust bunnies.

The Calculation of Failure:

Under the arch there ... that's the remains of a 4-lane interstate sitting in the Mississippi River. NTSB finally decided what actually happened on that fateful morning we were watching this on CNN-Germany in the Munich International Airport.

Some of the 35W bridge's gusset plates were too small for the weight of the bridge. Where they should have been an inch thick, they were half an inch.
In 1962, when the bridge was designed, the size of the gusset plates likely weren't calculated.
1977: MnDOT added two inches of pavement to the bridge deck.
1998: added a de-icing system and barriers.
Summer 2007: re-decking the bridge began
August 1, 2007, 3:30 p.m.: Nearly 300 tons of equipment and rock and concrete were placed on the bridge deck, weighing as much as a 747 aircraft.
August 1, 2007, 6:00 p.m.: whole damn thing falls into the Mississippi River during evening rush hour.

"Somebody missed the whole idea that we're going to put 287 tons of weight on the bridge and maybe somebody should look at that," Chealander said.

Every year the American Society of Civil Engineers create a report card for and a cost estimate of fixing the country's infrastructure.

In 2008? $1.6 trillion strike you?

Put it in perspective, Ballarini says. "We have a $700 billion (financial) bailout and we have a $700, $800 billion war, so it's not that we can't generate that money," he says.
A growing number of federal and state lawmakers appear to favor spending more in infrastructure both to address years of deferred maintenance and putting people back to work.

Ballarini's advice?

Don't bank on the leaders following through.

"I'm convinced through education and grass roots movements that we could get these things done. One of the things I'll talk about is that we can't rely on people at the very top to lead us.

click on little picture at top of story for bigger version of photo @ top

long way across the river

Today again I bicycled to campus. The bridge between the banks (the university straddles the river) is partially closed for repair/assessment. For some reason, the stability of the bridges around here got to be a big thing in the past year. The bridge upper deck has a covered central corridor - Yes, it's covered. When you need to walk to class in -10F weather, it's nice to have a windbreak.
- for pedestrians, with the outer edges for bikes. The whole thing spans the width of the 4-lane bridge.

I have no idea why it's okay to drive across the bridge, while I can't bike on it... One of the city buses must weigh far more than all of the bicyclists on the bridge at any given time.

I have to dismount & walk my bike across the river, which I discovered is a really, really long way. I never really noticed how wide the Mississippi is here.

The walls for the pedestrians' covered corridor are just cheap plywood. The interior of which are painted panels for the various student organizations, ranging from the Vedic Change Your Life to the University's marching band to Der Svenskaklubb. Some however, are amusing:

Queer Women: a flaming good time
CASH: Campus Atheists Skeptics & Humanists: the best damned group on campus
Heavy Metal: University Marching Band Flutes & Piccolos
University Physics Society: Is Carl Sagan your homeboy?

Architechtual Autopsy

Forgot to check the time before I got on the bus. So, instead of 5 of minutes wait out doors in the cold at the transfer point, I got to wait 20+. I remember moving here and I could still count the number of times I had crossed the Mississippi. I not only can’t remember what that number was, I can certainly no longer count. The bus to University of Minnesota’s campus goes across everyday, and back (my classes are on the east bank). The first week or so of classes, I paid obsessive attention to where we were, since the bus schedule doesn’t actually list all of the stops, just the highlights. This morning, I took advantage of the morning ride and went to sleep.

After the first week or so, I relaxed enough to start paying attention to the surrounds, especially the last leg to campus. It’s hard to not notice the change from business to academic architecture. The point where this bridge - there are several - crosses The River is the only point in the middle of the city where there is actually a noticeable amount of riverbank. The whole river has a sheer drop from ground down to the water. The drop is on the west side, from quite high. I noticed, once I started paying attention, that the upstream west bank was collecting an amazing amount of junk. Then, one day I actually took the bus home in the daylight. Looking upstream, I realized the debris wasn’t simply the flotsam of environmental idiots.

It was the I-35 bridge.

Over the past 5 months (I wrote this in Jan.), the pile of girders and trusses and whatever else goes in a bridge grew and grew. Then began to coalesce. The investigation crew has been reassembling the bridge.

This evening, the shore now has about a dozen re-assembled trusses lying on the ground, with the pieces laid neatly to each other like a macabre jigsaw puzzle. A $250,000,000.00 jigsaw. There are dozens upon dozens of pieces remaining. Every month it grows more complete. The twisted, strained, and broken steel bits tell a different story than the stunning photos on CNN, BBC, or Peter’s camera. The bridge there looked like a broken bridge. The lonely flotsam collection lying tonight on the banks of the Mighty Mississippi looks simply ... lost. misplaced. tiny.

I see the structural support without the road, without the paving, and suddenly I wonder how that little pile could possibly have held a 4-lane interstate highway.

I wonder how long the corpse of the bridge will remain there, pending its autopsy.