The Glade 4.0

I don't know if your entire American "interstate" highway network is this well maintained ... if it is, this may be one of the best things your government has ever done.

It was almost a pleasure to drive the entire 17 hours down interstate 75 from Detroit to the cutoff to go to Orlando. The roads are well maintained (except for in Michigan), the welcome centers at each state line are useful. The signs are frequent and easy to navigate.

It's almost like your government wants you to drive places. What a refreshing change. Driving in Ontario SUCKS.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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We had a thread about this recently. The interstate highway system was pushed through Congress by Eisenhower (not Reagan).

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

80's pretty awesome, too...as long as you stay out of Illinois

Actually it was the auto manufacturers who wanted everyone to drive places. Luckily for them it's pretty impressive what you can do with a **** ton of money, the right politicians and PACs.

It wasn't just the auto manufacturers. We had a president who had been a general in a major war, and who understood how important roads were going to be for modern countries. At the time the interstate system was being developed, someone in the government did want people to drive places.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

It does vary somewhat from state to state. Here in WA, where the gov't and unions are 69ing each other, we have great interstates. The side-effect being they are almost always under construction. I see a noticeable decrease in quality in OR and CA, but less construction delays. Then again, since I don't drive daily in OR and CA, maybe I've just passed through in the off seasons.

The one time I went to Canada I was laughing at how much the roads sucked. It made me think of Canada as a third world country.

For the most part the entire interstate system is that way. I-75 is a pretty nice drive, but I prefer I-65 for North/South cross country travel.



Did you get on the turnpike after that? That's another nice stretch of road, if a bit lacking for scenery. Keep in mind that we don't have to worry about maintaining cold-weather roads or fixing potholes down here, though.

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Did you wave as you drove by?

I-75's pretty nice, but around here, it's been under construction at some point (usually multiple points) between I-70 and Cincinnati for about, oh, I want to say 9 years, now.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I actually did, although it was probably between midnight at 4 in the morning, as I recall. (I specifically waved when passing through Lima, because another glader told me he lived there. I do not know where precisely you are.)


What boggles my mind is how immediately the local accent changes when you cross the bridge in Cincinnati into Kentucky.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

It's too bad you stopped there Talya. if you had continued all the way down to Homestead you could have then continued (from Homestead aread) down to Key West (which is not I-75). That drive can be completed in about 2.5 hours and is once of the nicest and pretties drives you ever do, provided you like seeing the ocean and the blues and greens. It was one of our favorite parts of living in Key West, our at least once a month drive to Miami.

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Gorse

The first time I drove on Ca freeways I thought I had a flat, what with all the gudung gudung noise. Awful surface the 101.

Yeah, they have some joint issues. You get used to it.

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

As a general rule, Interstates are pretty easy and nice to drive on. I especially enjoy driving them out in the mountains in Colorado. I 80 through Nebraska to Denver, and then I-70 west from there is really nice. Nebraska is a surprisingly pleasent state to drive through. Long, and pretty much the same all the way, but still a surprisingly pleasent trip, especially compared to Kansas.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Michigan felt like this.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Really depends on what part of the 101 you're on, some of it is pretty good, others, not so much. Its a pretty long road. Very scenic in a lot of places.

280 is my favorite drive for a combination of good road and scenery. At one point you get to see Father Serra pointing the way to San Francisco, or on rare occasions holding the football for kickoff.

Couldn't find one with the huge football gag, but here he is as he normally looks, at a rest stop right off the freeway.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

If you drove over in Detroit, yes you saw the worst part of 75 in the entire state. It isn't that bad everywhere.

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Raell Kromwell

You'll hear Americans ***** constantly about our roads. However, they are, overall, extremely nice.

It's all relative. You can drive 70 MPH down the highway with no bumps, and people will complain about the seam noise.

I did 110 or so through most of the state of Utah on 80, never had a problem.

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Raell Kromwell

Obviously the bridges on the I-5 are not that well maintained.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Some yes, some not so much.

That particular bridge, it was hit be a truck carrying an over-sized over-weight load at a strategic load bearing point. Kind of like when someone's knee is hit from behind is how I've heard it described on the radio here.

They (the government) are already talking about reviewing not only the permits (and who is allowed to issue them) to carry those loads, but adding further scrutiny as to what bridges are going to be crossed on these over-trips.

Still kind of shocking, but the details add understanding as to why it happened.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

I would think a properly maintained bridge should have enough safety factor to withstand that sort of impact. Permits for trucks don't address that underlying flaw of the bridge.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

This isn't just about the deferred maintenance and the austerity measures endangering the users of the bridge. This is also about the blunt force trauma of the truck ramming the bridge.

The underlying flaw is being vulnerable to having a truck seriously over the weight limit on the bridge hit the support beam that joins a couple sections of the bridge together like a slugger using a baseball bat on the back and side of your knee, collapse will most likely happen, some damage certainly.

Usually the permit givers aren't considering the truck actually hitting the bridge, just the impact of the weight of the load going over the bridge.

That may change. Permits will be refused or made prohibitively expensive. The cost of transporting heavier loads will go up. These heavy loads may have to be transported by boat or train to the closest point to where they are needed. Liability will shift. Even when and if the maintenance schedule gets back on track, bridges will still be vulnerable to this sort of import.

I doubt the Canadian trucker is actually a terrorist trying to destroy the infrastructure of America, but who knows.

**** happens.

The austerity promoters who demanded the deferment of maintenance will not be punished or brought to task, even though they should. The money to perform all the deferred work is available, cheaply, but it just adds to the debt. Can't raise taxes, so we can't increase the debt.

The ones hollering the loudest, particularly about the cost of repairing the bridge, will most likely be the same ones who demanded cuts be made to these wasteful "non-essential" government costs.

My cynicism level is very high today.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Maintenance wasn't the problem.

The bridge was built in 1955, and while considered 'safe', and not in dire need of repair, the design was functionally deficient (too narrow, no shoulders, not high enough for modern transport). The state had no plans to replace it (until now).

The truck that hit it was carrying a large steel girder drilling platform. The truck was part of a two truck convoy with a leader truck and a follow truck. These guide trucks are supposed to move into the left adjacent lane when they are approaching a low structure like this bridge and slow down to allow the trucks to drive slowly down the center of the roadway (straddling lanes) in order to cross under the highest point.

In this case, the second truck had engine problems, and pulled off at a rest stop with the follow truck while the leader truck and one of the semi's continued on.

This left no lane protection from the rear, allowing vehicles to pass on the left lane and preventing them from moving under the highest part of the bridge opening.

The load was too wide for one lane, and too tall for the right lane because the trusses were arched and lower towards the outside edges.

The top right corner of the drilling platform hit the right edge of the truss where it met the right side of the bridge, compromising the integrity of the support structure.

The impact was strong enough to tip the loaded 18 wheeler onto it's left side wheels.

The truck was able to continue safely across the bridge before it collapsed.

Here is a news article, and a picture gallery
http://www.seattlepi.com/news/us/articl ... php#page-2


Here is a picture of the truck with the drilling platform on it, with the still in tact end of the bridge in the background.


Here is a good visual of the collapsed segment of the bridge (south end). You can see the truck that hit it on the far right side of the image.

That's an interesting article, although they give the wrong impression of what happened to the Minnesota bridge in 2007. The gusset plate that cracked wasn't "too thin," it was just never designed for the loads it ended up carrying forty years later. The state of Minnesota overloaded that bridge.

One thing you have to realize about the interstate highway system in the United States is that we were the first country really doing that on a wide scale. For example, rush hour traffic over the Mississippi River didn't make sense until after the bridge was built. They just built the best bridge they could with the money available, and told you what it could withstand. (Numbers they calculated by hand, because although computers existed, we weren't using them a lot.)

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.