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What Happened To the Bay Bridge?
farnsworth writes "Tony Alfrey has put together a fascinating page with some history, analysis, and possible explanations for what ultimately went wrong with the recent emergency repair of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The bridge has been closed for days and is not scheduled to open for days to come, hugely inconveniencing more than 250,000 people a day. His analysis touches on possibly poor welding, a possibly flawed temporary fix, and the absence of a long-term fix or adequate follow-up by Caltrans, the agency responsible for the bridge. Slashdot is a great engineering community; what other insights do you have on the bridge situation?"
For several work mornings the headline on "the new" CNN.com has been "Bay Bridge still closed."
In my head I hear it in the voice of Chevy Chase.
"General Francisco Franco is still dead!"
Four years ago I bought that bridge along with a package of subprime mortgages to highly qualified homeowners.
They should have used duct-tape!
I knew people had been talking about the state falling apart due to budget problems, but i didnt think they meant it literally
Good people go to bed earlier.
No, Slashdot is mostly made up of computer janitors; the greatest insight you'll get out of most of the posters here is, "hurrr durr, the bridge must've been running Windoze! LOL!", with maybe a little "omg the twin towers were collapsed by EXPLOSIVES!!!!"-style conspiracy theory and "THE GOVERNMENT IS BAD!!!" braindead libertarianism thrown in for color.
Software piracy is victimless theft.
If their goal was to improve the safety of the bridge, then they totally succeeded.
The US spends $1.15 trillion a year on 'Defense', only bleeding heart liberals would want to waste any of that money on silly things like infrastructure.
MABASPLOOM!
I agree it is important. It keeps drivers from clogging up my train ride every morning. But it isn't a "landmark" in the sense that tourists don't go to look at it. (Except for the dumb ones suckered by locals saying "it's being repainted...the gray is the primer.")
The cake is a pie
Sir, I can make no claims as to the veracity nor contrewise of your premises.
However, should they prove to be true then surely a far greater mystery is how it has stayed up so far.
Verily thine,
B. Franklin.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Bridges aren't that expensive, it's the assembly and installation that kills you.
Not that this wasn't entirely predictable.
I suspect that California educated engineers had a lot to do with the problem. A panel had to decide how to fix the problem. The panel was composed, by law, of one gay, one lesbian, one transvestite, one Mormon, one Moslem, one Black, one Hispanic - the list goes on and on.
You REALLY don't know how things work in California.
We got rid of the Mormon after the Prop 8 debacle.
Bridges aren't that expensive, it's the assembly and installation that kills you.
... so it's like buying Ikea?