3 ms·

A well-maintained (and well designed, but there's no reason to think the design was at fault here) bridge shouldn't collapse. Ever. "Appropriate maintenance" in

by rob74 2y ago

A well-maintained (and well designed, but there's no reason to think the design was at fault here) bridge shouldn't collapse. Ever. "Appropriate maintenance" in this case would have been to periodically unclog the drains so the water can run off in a controlled fashion and not pool and corrode the supports. How expensive can that be? Instead, the bridge collapses (and they were lucky that no one was killed in the collapse), and they have to replace it for millions of dollars. Money saved on maintenance is the very definition of the proverb "penny wise, pound foolish" IMHO.

amanaplanacanal 2y ago
I don’t know how things work in other countries, but in the US new construction is almost always funded with a big chunk of federal dollars (deficit spending), but maintenance has to be done out of your own state or local budget. The incentives are all fucked up.
- wazoox 2y ago
  Same in other countries for many things. It's relatively easier to spend big on white elephants but almost impossible to get basic day-to-day operation money. Case in point right now at the France-Italy border : they're building the longest rail tunnel in the world under the Alps for tens of billions. There is a tunnel already (Frejus tunnel), which is used at 25% of its capacity, but public money is raining on this unstoppable, useless project. On the other end, all over Europe and particularly in France and Italy, rail and road infrastructures are in a state of disrepair. Wouldn't this money be better used repairing thousands of bridges, tunnels, etc? Sure, but no politician could campaign on "I've got billions spent in our region!". No multinational civil engineering and construction company such as Eiffage or Bouygues would get big money. All the big boys are in favour of the project, and all the small guys simply don't count. This is all completely fucked-up, frankly. It's a general failure of democracy and a global corporate takeover.
  - em-bee 2y ago
    that's because the frejus route is unsuitable for high speed rail. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turin%E2%80%93Lyon_high-speed_railway#The_present_high-altitude_line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turin%E2%80%93Lyon_high-speed_... Additional traffic limitations stem from the impact of excessive train transit on the population living near the line. Some 60,000 people live within 250 m (820 ft) of the historical line, and would object to the noise from late-night transits. In 2007 the conventional line was used for only one-third of this calculated total capacity. This low use level was in part because restrictions such as an unusually low maximum allowable train height and the very steep gradients (26–30‰) and sharp curves in its high valley sections discourage its use. A 2018 analysis, by contrast, found the existing line close to saturation, largely because safety regulations now prohibit passenger and freight trains from crossing in a single-tube tunnel. This very significantly reduces the maximum allowed capacity of the 13.7 km long Fréjus tunnel, which trains of one type must now fully cross before any train of the other type can be allowed in the other direction. The historical line's path through the deep Maurienne valley is also exposed to rockfalls, and a major landslide in August 2023 forced its closure for most likely over one year.
    - wazoox 2y ago
      No that's barely a bad excuse. The projected market for the new line is 500 000 passengers a year, that's 2 trains each way per day. That doesn't even begin making the slightest sense. As passenger traffic cannot be a valid justification, they turned towards fret trains. Too bad, fret has been dropping between France and Italy for some years. Fret trains have dropped dramatically in France well below the European average (17% of cargo traffic) to 9 to 10% of traffic. If you want to revive freight trains, you can't just build one frigging tunnel, you need to rebuild almost from scratch the whole thing first because Fret SNCF has been closed down in 2023 and dismantled! With the amount of money invested you could probably fly everyone from Lyon to Turin on expensive aviation biofuel for centuries before recouping the humongous investment. This is just stupid grandiosity allied with corruption.
- Sharlin 2y ago
  Yeah, that sounds really strange. Not sure how it is elsewhere in Europe, but in Finland whoever builds it, maintains it. Intercity road and rail networks are all owned and managed by the state, and that’s actually how the equivalents of "road" and "street" are defined within the field: anything owned by the state is a road, anything owned by the municipality is a street. In recent years there have been plans to "boulevardize" some major arterials within city boundaries, meaning the city takes over responsibility of the road segment and turns it into a street with lower speed limits, multimodal access, and so on. The intention is, of course, to facilitate urban development in the corridor.
  - dmurray 2y ago
    Finland joined the EU too late and too rich, perhaps. In other countries the EU was the main source of funds for building motorways, but doesn't own them or maintain them.
    - Sharlin 2y ago
      Hmm, perhaps. These days you can still get 30-50% from the EU but essentially only if it’s part of TEN-T or maybe some Green Deal related project. The core network of major roads in Finland can be kept in a good shape, the issue is largely the thousands of kms of secondary and tertiary roads in the middle of nowhere that have too little traffic to be any sort of a maintenance priority, or to be eligible for EU funding. But you can’t really help it in a country that’s as sparsely populated as Finland outside major urban areas.
- p1mrx 2y ago
  Maybe we should spend federal dollars on stainless steel, to reduce maintenance costs.
bregma 2y ago
Ah, but replacement comes out of the capital budget not the operating budget, and involves ribbon cuttings and speechifying on opening day as opposed to inconvenient lane closures or even hidden ongoing tasks that are invisible to the voter.

by rob74 2y ago

amanaplanacanal 2y ago

I don’t know how things work in other countries, but in the US new construction is almost always funded with a big chunk of federal dollars (deficit spending), but maintenance has to be done out of your own state or local budget. The incentives are all fucked up.

wazoox 2y ago
Same in other countries for many things. It's relatively easier to spend big on white elephants but almost impossible to get basic day-to-day operation money. Case in point right now at the France-Italy border : they're building the longest rail tunnel in the world under the Alps for tens of billions. There is a tunnel already (Frejus tunnel), which is used at 25% of its capacity, but public money is raining on this unstoppable, useless project. On the other end, all over Europe and particularly in France and Italy, rail and road infrastructures are in a state of disrepair. Wouldn't this money be better used repairing thousands of bridges, tunnels, etc? Sure, but no politician could campaign on "I've got billions spent in our region!". No multinational civil engineering and construction company such as Eiffage or Bouygues would get big money. All the big boys are in favour of the project, and all the small guys simply don't count. This is all completely fucked-up, frankly. It's a general failure of democracy and a global corporate takeover.
- em-bee 2y ago
  that's because the frejus route is unsuitable for high speed rail. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turin%E2%80%93Lyon_high-speed_railway#The_present_high-altitude_line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turin%E2%80%93Lyon_high-speed_... Additional traffic limitations stem from the impact of excessive train transit on the population living near the line. Some 60,000 people live within 250 m (820 ft) of the historical line, and would object to the noise from late-night transits. In 2007 the conventional line was used for only one-third of this calculated total capacity. This low use level was in part because restrictions such as an unusually low maximum allowable train height and the very steep gradients (26–30‰) and sharp curves in its high valley sections discourage its use. A 2018 analysis, by contrast, found the existing line close to saturation, largely because safety regulations now prohibit passenger and freight trains from crossing in a single-tube tunnel. This very significantly reduces the maximum allowed capacity of the 13.7 km long Fréjus tunnel, which trains of one type must now fully cross before any train of the other type can be allowed in the other direction. The historical line's path through the deep Maurienne valley is also exposed to rockfalls, and a major landslide in August 2023 forced its closure for most likely over one year.
  - wazoox 2y ago
    No that's barely a bad excuse. The projected market for the new line is 500 000 passengers a year, that's 2 trains each way per day. That doesn't even begin making the slightest sense. As passenger traffic cannot be a valid justification, they turned towards fret trains. Too bad, fret has been dropping between France and Italy for some years. Fret trains have dropped dramatically in France well below the European average (17% of cargo traffic) to 9 to 10% of traffic. If you want to revive freight trains, you can't just build one frigging tunnel, you need to rebuild almost from scratch the whole thing first because Fret SNCF has been closed down in 2023 and dismantled! With the amount of money invested you could probably fly everyone from Lyon to Turin on expensive aviation biofuel for centuries before recouping the humongous investment. This is just stupid grandiosity allied with corruption.
Sharlin 2y ago
Yeah, that sounds really strange. Not sure how it is elsewhere in Europe, but in Finland whoever builds it, maintains it. Intercity road and rail networks are all owned and managed by the state, and that’s actually how the equivalents of "road" and "street" are defined within the field: anything owned by the state is a road, anything owned by the municipality is a street. In recent years there have been plans to "boulevardize" some major arterials within city boundaries, meaning the city takes over responsibility of the road segment and turns it into a street with lower speed limits, multimodal access, and so on. The intention is, of course, to facilitate urban development in the corridor.
- dmurray 2y ago
  Finland joined the EU too late and too rich, perhaps. In other countries the EU was the main source of funds for building motorways, but doesn't own them or maintain them.
  - Sharlin 2y ago
    Hmm, perhaps. These days you can still get 30-50% from the EU but essentially only if it’s part of TEN-T or maybe some Green Deal related project. The core network of major roads in Finland can be kept in a good shape, the issue is largely the thousands of kms of secondary and tertiary roads in the middle of nowhere that have too little traffic to be any sort of a maintenance priority, or to be eligible for EU funding. But you can’t really help it in a country that’s as sparsely populated as Finland outside major urban areas.
p1mrx 2y ago
Maybe we should spend federal dollars on stainless steel, to reduce maintenance costs.

bregma 2y ago

Ah, but replacement comes out of the capital budget not the operating budget, and involves ribbon cuttings and speechifying on opening day as opposed to inconvenient lane closures or even hidden ongoing tasks that are invisible to the voter.