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> Are you saying the bus driver deviated from the usual route? I didn't say anything like that, no, nor any of the other invented things you tried to add to my

> Are you saying the bus driver deviated from the usual route? I didn't say anything like that, no, nor any of the other invented things you tried to add to my actual statement. . > Perhaps a passenger boarded with their collection of lead figurines. Pew says the average American weighs 181 pounds. I'm not sure why you think you need lead figurines. Two tons, 181 pounds at a time, is only 22 people. PATransit busses are rated for 42 people plus two wheelchair bound people. This bus is over weight at half load. Please be less sarcastic. Thanks. . > It's not an Uber, they know where that bus will be traveling every time it leaves the station. Yes, that's why I blame them. . > Citation needed. Feel free to look it up.

saalweachter 5y ago
> ... the 447-foot-long span is rated in poor condition and is restricted to vehicles of up to 26 tons ... The weight limit was 26 tons, not 2 tons. My Chevy Volt would frequently brush up against a 2 ton weight limit.
- JohnHaugeland 5y ago
  > The weight limit was 26 tons, not 2 tons. 85% of PATransit busses are from the 1996 acquisition (Cummins ISL, ISB, IS9; Voith 864; Allison D) those busses weigh either 24 or 25 tons. Their other busses (except the 28x airport flyer) are heavier. Other than the flyers, SEPTA's lightest bus is 24 tons. Some of them, like the XE40 or the X12, are significantly heavier. About 1/5 of PATransit's fleet is over-weight for this bridge without a single person on board. 26 tons is so little of a load that nobody should ever have been sending a bus over it. The 2 tons is for the human load, above and beyond the weight of the vehicle. The vehicle already accounts for 24 of the 26 tons, bare minimum by definition. If it was an XE40, it was two tons over load without even a driver. That is to say, "there's more weight here than just the human beings. You should also consider the bus itself." I did spell this out, but it was in a different comment tree. I thought I had here too. Sorry; I could have been clearer. Someone in a different thread pointed out that it was a three axle bus. I've been making this case based on two-axle busses being too heavy. PATransit's lightest three-axle bus is MAN SG 220 GAWR, just shy of 30 tons curb weight, which is nearly 4 tons over limit. Look, if you're from Pittsburgh, the last thing you want to do is stand up for PennDOT. But looking at the numbers, to me, this really looks like "too big bus," not "bridge go boom" Not all infrastructure failures are the fault of the infrastructure. Many, maybe even most, but not all. It's important to differentiate.
  - steveklabnik 5y ago
    I'm curious about this, where did you get the info about the fleet? Wikipedia suggests that the fleet is almost entirely Gillig, but has no citations. I couldn't find it on the Port Authority's site either. > Look, if you're from Pittsburgh, the last thing you want to do is stand up for PennDOT. Agreed, but "runs bus service every ~30 minutes where a single bus would make the entire bridge overweight" would be an entirely new level of "I can't believe it."
    - JohnHaugeland 5y ago
      > Agreed, but "runs bus service every ~30 minutes where a single bus would make the entire bridge overweight" would be an entirely new level of "I can't believe it." structural damage is incremental. situations where the trigger is dramatically smaller than peak load are quite common. consider the florida condominum: it collapsed in fair weather, despite that under rain load it would have hundreds of tons more support carry. you've seen many videos on youtube where a sinkhole opened up under a small car on a large road which carries freight. this is one of the things you're taught very early in the relevant schooling. you've tried to pull my card in fairly aggressive ways several times in this thread. it's making me somewhat uncomfortable.
      - steveklabnik 5y ago
        I am sorry to make you feel uncomfortable. I am trying to make sense of something that happened to something very near and dear to me. Not trying to do anything to you. I asked the question about the fleet not to "pull your card" but because I am interested and spent a bunch of time trying to find this information and could not, and am interested in how you came across it. You started off with "look up the weight of a bus" and I that's exactly what I tried to do, and what I found is not the same as what you're saying, so I asked for where you got your data to see if I found bad data or you did. (And yes, absolutely structural damage is incremental, but that's not material to the claim that this bus weighs over 26 tons.)
        5y ago

saalweachter 5y ago

> ... the 447-foot-long span is rated in poor condition and is restricted to vehicles of up to 26 tons ... The weight limit was 26 tons, not 2 tons. My Chevy Volt would frequently brush up against a 2 ton weight limit.

JohnHaugeland 5y ago
> The weight limit was 26 tons, not 2 tons. 85% of PATransit busses are from the 1996 acquisition (Cummins ISL, ISB, IS9; Voith 864; Allison D) those busses weigh either 24 or 25 tons. Their other busses (except the 28x airport flyer) are heavier. Other than the flyers, SEPTA's lightest bus is 24 tons. Some of them, like the XE40 or the X12, are significantly heavier. About 1/5 of PATransit's fleet is over-weight for this bridge without a single person on board. 26 tons is so little of a load that nobody should ever have been sending a bus over it. The 2 tons is for the human load, above and beyond the weight of the vehicle. The vehicle already accounts for 24 of the 26 tons, bare minimum by definition. If it was an XE40, it was two tons over load without even a driver. That is to say, "there's more weight here than just the human beings. You should also consider the bus itself." I did spell this out, but it was in a different comment tree. I thought I had here too. Sorry; I could have been clearer. Someone in a different thread pointed out that it was a three axle bus. I've been making this case based on two-axle busses being too heavy. PATransit's lightest three-axle bus is MAN SG 220 GAWR, just shy of 30 tons curb weight, which is nearly 4 tons over limit. Look, if you're from Pittsburgh, the last thing you want to do is stand up for PennDOT. But looking at the numbers, to me, this really looks like "too big bus," not "bridge go boom" Not all infrastructure failures are the fault of the infrastructure. Many, maybe even most, but not all. It's important to differentiate.
- steveklabnik 5y ago
  I'm curious about this, where did you get the info about the fleet? Wikipedia suggests that the fleet is almost entirely Gillig, but has no citations. I couldn't find it on the Port Authority's site either. > Look, if you're from Pittsburgh, the last thing you want to do is stand up for PennDOT. Agreed, but "runs bus service every ~30 minutes where a single bus would make the entire bridge overweight" would be an entirely new level of "I can't believe it."
  - JohnHaugeland 5y ago
    > Agreed, but "runs bus service every ~30 minutes where a single bus would make the entire bridge overweight" would be an entirely new level of "I can't believe it." structural damage is incremental. situations where the trigger is dramatically smaller than peak load are quite common. consider the florida condominum: it collapsed in fair weather, despite that under rain load it would have hundreds of tons more support carry. you've seen many videos on youtube where a sinkhole opened up under a small car on a large road which carries freight. this is one of the things you're taught very early in the relevant schooling. you've tried to pull my card in fairly aggressive ways several times in this thread. it's making me somewhat uncomfortable.
    - steveklabnik 5y ago
      I am sorry to make you feel uncomfortable. I am trying to make sense of something that happened to something very near and dear to me. Not trying to do anything to you. I asked the question about the fleet not to "pull your card" but because I am interested and spent a bunch of time trying to find this information and could not, and am interested in how you came across it. You started off with "look up the weight of a bus" and I that's exactly what I tried to do, and what I found is not the same as what you're saying, so I asked for where you got your data to see if I found bad data or you did. (And yes, absolutely structural damage is incremental, but that's not material to the claim that this bus weighs over 26 tons.)
      - 5y ago