Posts
Today's Times has an op-ed on the subject of bridge maintenance from a former chief engineer of NYC's Department of Transportation. Naturally things are worse than we think.... which I can find funny in other realms, but not in this.
I know bureaucracies work the way they work, and incentives & disincentives work the way they work.
But I'll never get used to it, and I'll never feel anything but contempt for this level of irrational action and decisionmaking.
speaking of which
The bridge collapsed on Monday, August 1.
On August 3 the Sun ran a story:
More than 2,000 bridges in New York State carry the same federal rating of "structurally deficient" as a major highway bridge that collapsed in Minnesota this week, killing at least four people.
[snip]According to state standards, New York does not have any bridges that are structurally deficient, a deputy commissioner at the New York City Department of Transportation, Lori Ardito, said yesterday, noting that bridges in the city undergo inspections every two years.
By federal standards, about 15% of New York City bridges are "structurally deficient." At least nine city bridges received the lowest rating on their federal evaluation in 2006, which means they have components requiring replacement, according to a national bridge inventory database maintained by the Federal Highway Administration.
Ms. Ardito said that even the three city bridges that have gotten a poor rating under the state's rating system, including the Brooklyn Bridge, are safe to drive on.
"There's only components of the bridge that are in poor condition. They're actually the ramps leading to the bridge, not the span of the bridge," she said of the Brooklyn Bridge. "If the bridge was deemed unsafe, we would have to close it."
Note the language.
"We would have to close it."
Not: By God we're going to make sure those bridges are in pristine condition or no one's setting foot on them.
I really don't want to hear deputy commissioners of bridges sounding aggrieved and put-upon.
5 comments:
It's not so much what you know as what you don't know. Most all structures have a life and design safety factors. These things are known. You study these things in engineering school. I took a course once that talked only about aging structures and fatigue strength. S-N diagrams are scary things for all engineers. But, these things are taken into account during the design phase, and the inspection process is based on this information.
Most failures, however, result from things you don't know, like the wrong epoxy (so the story goes) used to hold the bolts for the concrete slabs in the "Big Dig" project in Boston. Inspection can help spot unexpected problems early enough, but you have to WANT to find them (not just check things off on an inspection document), and you have to WANT to do something about them.
There is no such thing as "pristine condition". There are only good inspection processes and the willingness (managerial and political) to do something about any sort of problem.
"structurally deficient" doesn't scare me. What scares me is when our state DOT isn't willing to to do a sample recheck to see how valid the inspection paperwork is.
"I know bureaucracies work the way they work, and incentives & disincentives work the way they work."
... even at NASA.
I took a course once that talked only about aging structures and fatigue strength. S-N diagrams are scary things for all engineers.
yeah, my brother-in-law says engineers spend years studying catastrophic failures of this sort
There is no such thing as "pristine condition". There are only good inspection processes and the willingness (managerial and political) to do something about any sort of problem.
I'm sure that's true.
Nevertheless, the language of a public official with oversight responsibility for bridges ought to convey some degree of enthusiasm for discharging that responsibility!
Most failures, however, result from things you don't know, like the wrong epoxy (so the story goes) used to hold the bolts for the concrete slabs in the "Big Dig" project in Boston.
Interesting.
Also unnerving.
I'd say most of us non-engineers prefer to think that there aren't any significant unknowns in engineering!
In fact, I would go so far as to say that if we still don't know everything we need to know about GLUE, then.....AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH!
Post a Comment