One of the most extraordinary features of my mind is that I can remember anything in detail from my early days. I can remember riding on Thomas the Tank Engine at the age of 21 months, but I can also vividly remember watching the desolation left by the 2004 tsunami on television with my grandfather, who saw many of his memories washed away by the wave. I can remember going on amazing road trips all around the country’s infrastructure in my toddler years, but I also remember this.
Even though I was not at the site, my five-year-old self watched in horror as our television displayed the aftermath of a major interstate bridge collapse in Minneapolis. This catastrophic failure in the bridge’s structure claimed the lives of thirteen people and injured over a hundred.
To this day, I usually think of those people whenever I cross over a highway bridge. This event showed me the effects of neglect in the world. I felt that this would be a disaster that occurred once, but there are far too many structures in this country that could meet a similar fate.
This is the Delaware River Turnpike Toll Bridge, and it provides a vital link between the states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. I have crossed over it many times to reach New York, and some of my classmates in high school travelled on it every day. Their commute times increased exponentially when a structural failure closed the bridge for several months in the winter of 2017.
Upon further examination, a completely fractured I-Beam support can be observed in this photo of the bridge’s approach structure. It was calculated that this break caused the approach of the bridge to sag one inch below its original height. This may not seem like a significant amount, but this was truly an averted crisis. The country could have lost one of its most important bridges and several lives with it. Emergency supports were immediately put into place to correct the integrity of the bridge, and the structure was immediately closed to road traffic. Repairs took several months and road traffic was significantly inconvenienced by this failure. It was reported that the failure was most likely caused by a stress fracture brought about from an improper I-Beam weld repair from the bridge’s construction in the 1950s. Although no lives were lost, and the bridge is now operating normally, this situation serves as a worrying reminder of the condition of many American bridges.
The American Society of Civil Engineers gives American bridges an overall condition grading of C.
The ASCE also reports that 7.5 percent of the country’s bridges can be classified as structurally deficient, and 178 million trips are made by Americans across these hazards daily. This seems like an accident waiting to happen, but most people continue to ignore this growing issue. Even when collapses occur like the 2007 Minneapolis Bridge failure, no adequate solution is provided for this problem.
Even the most iconic structures in our country fall victim to age and the elements.
As beautiful as the Golden Gate Bridge may be, its location makes it the victim of salt corrosion. In 1968, the bridge faced a major corrosion problem, and a twenty-seven year long program was adopted to repaint the bridge.
The major issue that bridges present is the expense of repairs. Additionally, these repairs take extensive amounts of time to carry out and often cause major detours for Americans on the roads.
However, if these repairs are not done now, the country’s roads will be a much more dangerous place in the future.
A Review of the Semester
I felt that I gained a deeper understanding of the nation’s infrastructure network through writing these blogs. I realize that most of my blogs were written about railroads, but they were still informative nevertheless. My work on this blog also put me in a good position to research the topics related to my issue brief and advocacy project. I have become a more informed citizen because of my work, and I hope that I have been able to enlighten you too.