You could go back even further. A bridge collapse was made possible by the building of a bridge. So you could go back to the moment when the do-nothing alternat

You could go back even further. A bridge collapse was made possible by the building of a bridge. So you could go back to the moment when the do-nothing alternative (cost: $0) was rejected in favor of building a bridge. Well why was that decision made? Let's keep going back. This is where you start running into certain pachyderms in the room. The problem being solved with a bridge, is the existence of 8th Street, a soul- and flesh-destroying 8-lane traffic monstrosity that apparently is sufficiently inconvenient, intimidating and dangerous for human beings to cross unassisted, that a bridge starts to look like a good idea. Seems like the people who allowed 8th St. to happen deserve some of the blame, namely backward-thinking urban "planners" who think it's still 1950, haven't heard of (lalala I can't hear you) induced demand, peak oil or climate change, and who have collectively been sold a bill of goods, and who don't have the imagination to think up any ways of creating "economic activity" in the town that don't destroy the town. This species unfortunately infests the entire continent and kills 35,000 people a year, so I don't expect them to lose sleep over these 6.