Bridge collapse in Minneapolis

[phillyfan26]

Originally posted by Snowlock
You're response here was to mine saying there's no need to politicize this. The implication of the statement is our bridges are in disrepair due to a lack of funds generated by Iraq. That directly implicates/involves Iraq.

But I'm not going to argue with you over what we were arguing over.

Well, I think, because of our political system, this issue will get delayed and complicated, like most issues. That's my issue here. It's unfortunate. I think it's something we need to fix now.

[LarryMullen's POPAngel]

Originally posted by unico


no i think you had a very good point about all the infrastructure building our administration is so focused on over there, and yet i've yet to see the same quality of improvements on our own.

how about them levees?????

Certain people would tend to disagree.

It's frustrating when you see so much money go to waste, essentially.

[Snowlock]

Originally posted by unico
[B]

1. you realize it was scheduled to be rebuilt/replaced in 2020 right?

We're already under a major bridge building operation to cross the mississippi on the south side of the metro. You think they're going to do two simultaneously?

2. this one sure needs fixing now, doesn't it? are we going to wait until more bridges fall before more funding goes into the transportation dept? YES, other bridges around the nation are going to be inspected, but as ntalwar said, the president did not say he will increase funds to other rebuilding efforts beyond MN. he didn't say that he wouldn't, but so far he hasn't said that he would.

It's the 4th bridge in 75 years. Do. The. Math.

3. what?

Yeah. We have winter here. Part of april through part of october is the only time they have to do construction. The vast majority of construction is from may through september. That's five months by my finger counting.

4. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109-2388 is this the bill you're speaking of? i hope not, because in bold print it says "this bill never became law"

No... Congress equals federal. I said here in minnesota meaning state.

[unico]

*removed*

[ntalwar]

A lot of the $500 billion being spent and wasted in Iraq is on Iraqi infrastructure. The MSNBC article stated that the White House threatens vetoes when Congress wants adequate funding for US infrastructure. It's naive to insist there's no link between US infrastructure funding and Iraq.

[arw]

I haven't bothered to read all of the bickering comments. I came to this thread because people died a few days ago....15 minutes from where I live on a bridge I drove on all the time. I don't care what you think about the government or President Bush or the Iraq war. Please show some respect to those that have to deal with this tragedy. My entire city is in mourning right now.

I do not look at this as government problem or a lack of anything by anyone. I've lived in the Twin Cities my entire life and they are always doing road constuction to make the roads better. I've traveled all over the country and I can't say the same for some of the places I've been to. I've traveled on roads that look like they've been in need of repair for years. Here, if there's a hole, it's fixed immediately. We're taxed heavily for it but I'd rather the work get done then not. Our winters put a beating onto the roads, so where there's not ice on the roads, they're getting fixed. The bridge was being worked on. It's been under construction all summer. Thankfully because of that, only 1/2 of it was open to cars or more people could have been injured or died. The people working on it were just "patching it up" and didn't think it needed to be replaced for another 8-10 years. It's a MAJOR bridge in the Twin Cities. I refuse to believe that if the people put in charge of repairing this bridge knew it was unsafe, that they would let 100,000+ cars drive on this daily not to mention their crew working on it daily for the past few months. I also refuse to point the finger at the government on this. How was anyone to know that out of all of the unsafe bridges in the entire US that this one would fall? It was being repaired! Who cares when it was scheduled to be replaced? Do any of you have any idea what replacing this bridge would do to the traffic in this area? They have to be a replacement road and bridge before they could tear down this entire bridge and redo it. This isn't a tiny little bridge on a country road. My state government wasn't sitting back waiting for it to be 2020 in order to fix the bridge. They were planning how to route the traffic that would be affected. I've seen first hand how they do this because all they ever do in the Twin Cities is road construction. The highway in front of my house needed a new bridge and in order to to this they had to build a bridge around the bridge to accomodate the traffic. It took months to just build the temporary replacement. This bridge is nowhere near the scale of the 35W bridge.

Believe what you want. I don't care. You don't live here and don't have to deal with what's going on right now. Thanks for turning this thread into another debate about Iraq and W. He's going to be in town tomorrow. So not only do we have to deal with finding alternative roads to drive on to and from Minneapolis and St Paul but we have to deal with the road closures all along the way to the bridge because his high and mighty wants a tour of the damage. Awesome.

[LarryMullen's POPAngel]

n/m

(out of respect for those dealing with the tragedy)

[unico]

i understand arw. i felt the same when my tragedy thread was turned into the debate. i'm sincerely sorry. i've removed my posts pertaining to the argument out of respect for you and your community.

[Vincent Vega]

Sorry.

[Snowlock]

Originally posted by LarryMullen's_POPAngel



Sarcasm directed towards posters who obviously haven't read or watched a single news item about the war and saying "haha that bridge collapsed" are so far apart in terms of everything I won't even bother trying to explain it to you. Obviously you skew things to suit your way of thinking which, from what I've seen this morning, is quite warped.

Yeah. I'm supporting just mourning those that are lost and celebrating those who were heroic. I think a reasonable response is required in that we first define exactly what structurally deficient means, then let those who know how, rerank the bridges if need be, and then schedule those that are in fact deemed dangerous to be fixed. And at the same time leave all the partisan politics out of it.

Completely warped.

[Snowlock]

Originally posted by phillyfan26


Well, I think, because of our political system, this issue will get delayed and complicated, like most issues. That's my issue here. It's unfortunate. I think it's something we need to fix now.

Well there's something we completely agree on. I would just like this thing for a while to not be politicized... No Bush bashing, no "those damn liberals are gonna tax the hell out of us to fix everything", no Iraq. Just the bridge.

[onebloodonelife]

Originally posted by arw9797
I haven't bothered to read all of the bickering comments. I came to this thread because people died a few days ago....15 minutes from where I live on a bridge I drove on all the time. I don't care what you think about the government or President Bush or the Iraq war. Please show some respect to those that have to deal with this tragedy. My entire city is in mourning right now.

I do not look at this as government problem or a lack of anything by anyone. I've lived in the Twin Cities my entire life and they are always doing road constuction to make the roads better. I've traveled all over the country and I can't say the same for some of the places I've been to. I've traveled on roads that look like they've been in need of repair for years. Here, if there's a hole, it's fixed immediately. We're taxed heavily for it but I'd rather the work get done then not. Our winters put a beating onto the roads, so where there's not ice on the roads, they're getting fixed. The bridge was being worked on. It's been under construction all summer. Thankfully because of that, only 1/2 of it was open to cars or more people could have been injured or died. The people working on it were just "patching it up" and didn't think it needed to be replaced for another 8-10 years. It's a MAJOR bridge in the Twin Cities. I refuse to believe that if the people put in charge of repairing this bridge knew it was unsafe, that they would let 100,000+ cars drive on this daily not to mention their crew working on it daily for the past few months. I also refuse to point the finger at the government on this. How was anyone to know that out of all of the unsafe bridges in the entire US that this one would fall? It was being repaired! Who cares when it was scheduled to be replaced? Do any of you have any idea what replacing this bridge would do to the traffic in this area? They have to be a replacement road and bridge before they could tear down this entire bridge and redo it. This isn't a tiny little bridge on a country road. My state government wasn't sitting back waiting for it to be 2020 in order to fix the bridge. They were planning how to route the traffic that would be affected. I've seen first hand how they do this because all they ever do in the Twin Cities is road construction. The highway in front of my house needed a new bridge and in order to to this they had to build a bridge around the bridge to accomodate the traffic. It took months to just build the temporary replacement. This bridge is nowhere near the scale of the 35W bridge.

Believe what you want. I don't care. You don't live here and don't have to deal with what's going on right now. Thanks for turning this thread into another debate about Iraq and W. He's going to be in town tomorrow. So not only do we have to deal with finding alternative roads to drive on to and from Minneapolis and St Paul but we have to deal with the road closures all along the way to the bridge because his high and mighty wants a tour of the damage. Awesome.

Perfectly said arw from one Minnesotan to another

[AnnRKeyintheUSA]

How was anyone to know that out of all of the unsafe bridges in the entire US that this one would fall? It was being repaired! Who cares when it was scheduled to be replaced? a

The deck only was being repaired, nothing about the structure. Some experts are now saying they think the construction and equipment on the deck combined with the stopped traffic caused by that construction putting extreme weight on it was the reason it fell.

Do any of you have any idea what replacing this bridge would do to the traffic in this area?

Of course. That is a major reason bridges aren't closed for repair. But I must ask, do you have any idea what a collapsed bridge would do to traffic in the area? Now we know. Do they have to wait for something like this to happen before they take serious action?

Because of the plea, I will not complain about the crumbling infrastructure like I had planned to. Peace and hugs to all in MN. And go Vikes and Twins.

[Butterscotch]

I apologize for being the first to bring up the Iraq issue in this thread. Let's mourn and then discuss what we need to do to make sure this never happens again in another thread.

[Irvine511]

i think we can safely say that much money is being wasted in Iraq that could be better used at home.

that is not to say that the bridge would not have fallen had Al Gore won the presidency in 2000, but it is to say that we have enormous problems to deal with here in the US regarding the safety of our citizens that actually aren't caused by nefarious "evildoers," and that this bridge is an example of a problem that America has to deal with -- crumbling infastructure -- that, to many, is far more pressing a need than removing a troublesome dictator and setting ourselves up for an impossible occupation and exploding the deficit.

[corianderstem]

In Seattle, they've been saying that our viaduct (giant elevated two-decker slab of concrete that serves as an overpass along the waterfront downtown) needs to be replaced, ever since the last earthquake in 2001.

Problem is, no one can agree what to do. After much debate and several previous failed initiatives, they even put it to the voters last year. We could vote for option A (rebuild the viaduct), option B (a giant tunnel, a la The Big Dig), or neither.

"Neither" was the option that won. Still no answer. I don't know what it's like in other cities with aging bridges, but around here, I don't know that we can blame the government for not doing something. We just can't make up our minds regarding ANYTHING to do with fixing transportation issues in Seattle.

Everyone I talked to the day after this collapse talked about the Viaduct, and how that's all they could think about, watching the footage on TV.

I know whenever I drive to work, that's the route I take (I usually take the bus), and everytime I drive that mile or so on that giant slab of concrete, I think "What if an earthquake hit right now?" ... and am very relieved when I exit onto the surface street.

[LarryMullen's POPAngel]

I was backed up on the Ambassador Bridge last night. I'm not a big fan of bridges, period, so I would have been freaking out regardless, but as I was willing the traffic in front of me to get going images from the news last week was heavy in my mind.

[verte76]

This is awful.

[verte76]

Originally posted by Irvine511
i think we can safely say that much money is being wasted in Iraq that could be better used at home.

that is not to say that the bridge would not have fallen had Al Gore won the presidency in 2000, but it is to say that we have enormous problems to deal with here in the US regarding the safety of our citizens that actually aren't caused by nefarious "evildoers," and that this bridge is an example of a problem that America has to deal with -- crumbling infastructure -- that, to many, is far more pressing a need than removing a troublesome dictator and setting ourselves up for an impossible occupation and exploding the deficit.

I agree.