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I don't see why one would jump to blaming the engineers from the 1960's instead of the very government bureaucracy that was responsible for funding the maintena

I don't see why one would jump to blaming the engineers from the 1960's instead of the very government bureaucracy that was responsible for funding the maintenance and oversight of the bridge for over five decades. I do wonder if it is possible the "violent downburst" in the article could have created enough force on the bridge to push it past it's load-rating though. edit: I should add that it could very well be the fault of an engineer from 50 years ago (poor design, implementation), but this just happened today and it will take a while for people to figure out what really happened, and without any other data my first inclination is to think "poor maintenance" as that is what Occam's Razor (simple: lack of maintenance is very common these days, at least in the US: prepare to be afraid of many bridges you drive over[0]) and then there's the whole downburst thing that seems vaguely plausible for now. edit2: "The U.S. has 614,387 bridges, almost four in 10 of which are 50 years or older. 56,007 — 9.1% — of the nation’s bridges were structurally deficient in 2016, and on average there were 188 million trips across a structurally deficient bridge each day. While the number of bridges that are in such poor condition as to be considered structurally deficient is decreasing, the average age of America’s bridges keeps going up and many of the nation’s bridges are approaching the end of their design life. The most recent estimate puts the nation’s backlog of bridge rehabilitation needs at $123 billion."[1] [0]https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/americas-grades/ https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/americas-grades/ [1]https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/cat-item/bridges/ https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/cat-item/bridges/

simtel20 8y ago
I don't perceive any blame in the comment you are responding to, only observations relating to the history of bridges and the responsibility that comes with it. What did you feel was assigning blame when you read it?
- wastedhours 8y ago
  Whether or not it was intended, the entire comment implies exactly that - particularly with the call to the responsibility, ethics and standards of the civil engineers. For example, if someone dies in a car crash, it's a little out of context for you to focus on the responsibility and ethics of the car designer over and above the circumstances of the crash. Usually the latter focus is for when there's concern about said ethics and responsibilities.
- 24gttghh 8y ago
  See basically what wastedhours said.
toyg 8y ago
> I don't see why one would jump to blaming the engineers from the 1960's instead of [...] the maintenance Unfortunately, in this case it's probably a bit of both. A bridge that was the direct precursor to this one, collapsed after a few years. Maintenance expenses for the Genoa bridge were already off the charts 20 years ago, and likely went down after its privatisation. It had been described a few years ago as a "failure of engineering" by several people. Chances are that everyone involved in its maintenance knew that shit could hit the fan at some point, but there was no political will to close one of the main city arteries, and probably no budget (or even space, in that city) to build a replacement either. Being a civil engineer can be tough, especially in complicated countries like Italy. The main architect is long dead; the country has been broke for decades now; the elements are unforgiving; and people are more than ready to lynch you if shit happens.
- 24gttghh 8y ago
  I still think "failure of engineering" is too convenient of an excuse, but I concur with your points regardless.
- crescentfresh 8y ago
  > the country has been broke for decades now Really?
  - bonzini 8y ago
    Broke, no. Choked by debt interest, yes.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - sabas_ge 8y ago
      >Broke, no. And waste of resources. But broke no, thanks €!
  - toyg 8y ago
    Interest on public debt (which is 130% of GDP, inferior only to Japan [1]) makes it basically impossible to have any sort of expansive economic policy. Since the '90s, any investment has to be financed with cuts elsewhere (this has even been enshrined in the Constitution, for good measure). The state routinely struggles to pay for schools and police cars, and to hire replacements for retiring civil servants or doctors. One year, the state literally took a chunk of money out of all bank accounts overnight; a repeat has recently been considered. The country is broke, but our survival skills are so proverbial that the markets more or less trust we'll always come up with enough money to keep going. The day this stops being true, we'll go the Argentina way very quickly.
psychometry 8y ago
The good news is that Trump promised a massive reinvestment in U.S. infrastructure. I'm sure that's right around the corner...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
coryrc 8y ago
A bridge can be considered "structurally deficient" if destroying one member can cause the bridge to collapse, but the bridge can otherwise last decades or centuries more. The solution being stop letting idiots drive oversize loads on them and they'll be just fine without spending billions of dollars on replacements.
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
>56,007 — 9.1% — of the nation’s bridges were structurally deficient in 2016, and on average there were 188 million trips across a structurally deficient bridge each day This number is kept higher than it needs to be for economic/political reasons. If your bridge is about to fall down at any minute it's easier to get federal dollars (or justify using your existing dollars) to build a new bridge. As a result there's lots of bridges that are past due with shovel ready plans for replacement but the local/state gov is just waiting for it to become a crisis so that they don't have to pay for as much of the fix. If the replacement bridge requires taking private land, disrupting traffic, etc, etc. there's even more reason to wait for a crisis.

simtel20 8y ago

I don't perceive any blame in the comment you are responding to, only observations relating to the history of bridges and the responsibility that comes with it. What did you feel was assigning blame when you read it?

wastedhours 8y ago
Whether or not it was intended, the entire comment implies exactly that - particularly with the call to the responsibility, ethics and standards of the civil engineers. For example, if someone dies in a car crash, it's a little out of context for you to focus on the responsibility and ethics of the car designer over and above the circumstances of the crash. Usually the latter focus is for when there's concern about said ethics and responsibilities.
24gttghh 8y ago
See basically what wastedhours said.

toyg 8y ago

> I don't see why one would jump to blaming the engineers from the 1960's instead of [...] the maintenance Unfortunately, in this case it's probably a bit of both. A bridge that was the direct precursor to this one, collapsed after a few years. Maintenance expenses for the Genoa bridge were already off the charts 20 years ago, and likely went down after its privatisation. It had been described a few years ago as a "failure of engineering" by several people. Chances are that everyone involved in its maintenance knew that shit could hit the fan at some point, but there was no political will to close one of the main city arteries, and probably no budget (or even space, in that city) to build a replacement either. Being a civil engineer can be tough, especially in complicated countries like Italy. The main architect is long dead; the country has been broke for decades now; the elements are unforgiving; and people are more than ready to lynch you if shit happens.

24gttghh 8y ago
I still think "failure of engineering" is too convenient of an excuse, but I concur with your points regardless.
crescentfresh 8y ago
> the country has been broke for decades now Really?
- bonzini 8y ago
  Broke, no. Choked by debt interest, yes.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - sabas_ge 8y ago
    >Broke, no. And waste of resources. But broke no, thanks €!
- toyg 8y ago
  Interest on public debt (which is 130% of GDP, inferior only to Japan [1]) makes it basically impossible to have any sort of expansive economic policy. Since the '90s, any investment has to be financed with cuts elsewhere (this has even been enshrined in the Constitution, for good measure). The state routinely struggles to pay for schools and police cars, and to hire replacements for retiring civil servants or doctors. One year, the state literally took a chunk of money out of all bank accounts overnight; a repeat has recently been considered. The country is broke, but our survival skills are so proverbial that the markets more or less trust we'll always come up with enough money to keep going. The day this stops being true, we'll go the Argentina way very quickly.

psychometry 8y ago

The good news is that Trump promised a massive reinvestment in U.S. infrastructure. I'm sure that's right around the corner...

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

coryrc 8y ago

A bridge can be considered "structurally deficient" if destroying one member can cause the bridge to collapse, but the bridge can otherwise last decades or centuries more. The solution being stop letting idiots drive oversize loads on them and they'll be just fine without spending billions of dollars on replacements.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

>56,007 — 9.1% — of the nation’s bridges were structurally deficient in 2016, and on average there were 188 million trips across a structurally deficient bridge each day This number is kept higher than it needs to be for economic/political reasons. If your bridge is about to fall down at any minute it's easier to get federal dollars (or justify using your existing dollars) to build a new bridge. As a result there's lots of bridges that are past due with shovel ready plans for replacement but the local/state gov is just waiting for it to become a crisis so that they don't have to pay for as much of the fix. If the replacement bridge requires taking private land, disrupting traffic, etc, etc. there's even more reason to wait for a crisis.