Engineers Swarm on U.S. Bridges To Check for Flaws
Bridge inspectors fanned out across the U.S in mid-August, crawling over structures on deficiency lists and paying particular attention to ones with designs similar to the steel deck truss and gusseted connections of Minneapolis’s Interstate-35W crossing. They announced a few findings, but they and the politicians and local journalists tracking them made a lot of connections and raised many reminders about defrayed maintenance and delayed replacement projects everywhere.
Meanwhile, in Minnesota, planners pushed ahead to have a replacement bridge constructed rapidly, although they quickly ran into conflicts over potential enhancements such as adding light rail and more lanes. The Minnesota Dept. of Transportation on Aug. 14 whipped out a preliminary design to solicit feedback. It features a 10-lane bridge with four shoulders, allowing room for expansion. The old bridge started as a six-lane crossing and later was expanded to eight by claiming most of the shoulders. The proposed alignment appears to match the old one.