Why is USA so terrible at building bridges?

Stick with the nuts & bolts, please wrote:

This one was purely the fault of "new thinking" or something.

The catastrophically failed bridge was only put in place in the last week. As the FIU Twitter account made clear, it was built using a novel construction technique involving “swinging” pre-fabricated sections into place on site that the university called “first-of-its-kind.”

Likely, there won't be a "second of its kind" we can hope.

Actually we have no clue of why the bridge failed. You are jumping to conclusions that it was the new technique while it could easily be something else like poor material choice or poor executions (i.e they people doing this don't have a ton of experience). It could very well turn out to be a safer/cheaper way of building bridges. Or they could have some fundamental problem. Time will tell.

Wormit to Dundee wrote:

UK is no better.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_Bridge_disaster

The poem was a disaster also-

"Beautiful railway bridge of the silv'ry Tay

Alas! I am very sorry to say

That ninety lives have been taken away

On the last sabbath day of 1879

Which will be remember'd for a very long time."

...

"Oh! Ill-fated bridge of the silv'ry Tay,

I now must conclude my lay

By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,

That your central girders would not have given way,

At least many sensible men do say,

Had they been supported on each side with buttresses

At least many sensible men confesses,

For the stronger we our houses do build,

The less chance we have of being killed."

McGonagall wrote:

The poem was a disaster also-

"Beautiful railway bridge of the silv'ry Tay

Alas! I am very sorry to say

That ninety lives have been taken away

On the last sabbath day of 1879

Which will be remember'd for a very long time."

Just queue up the ceilidh music, quaff yer single malt whisky (aged at least 18 yrs), and perhaps it ain't haverin' so dighted when the grouse frae hame 'aye in season.

malmo wrote:

Bubbadeeboos wrote:

Governments are often required to go with the lowest bidder.

You've never bid a government contract then. It doesn't work that way.

It does indeed work that way. Bidders can be disqualified--bids incomplete; costs are unreasonably low; the bidder did not appear to read and review the drawings and specifications; they could not meet the schedule. The lowest bidder who is qualified will get the job.

America is good at building walls, not bridges.

Not the first time one of the company's involved in the Miami bridge collapse has been in trouble:

"One of the companies building the Florida bridge, Tallahassee-based FIGG Bridge Engineers, was fined $28,000 in 2012 after a 90-ton section of the South Norfolk Jordan Bridge collapsed in Chesapeake and crashed onto railroad tracks below, causing minor injuries to four workers."

https://pilotonline.com/news/local/transportation/article_ad4d2b24-28b2-11e8-8ab5-b3d346bdfd2a.html

A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?

You wouldn't believe.

Which car company do you work for?

A major one.

Gotta have a good foundation wrote:

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/us/san-francisco-files-lawsuit-against-sinking-millennium-tower.html?referer=

Millennium Tower is a huge ongoing mess that will cost someone millions-

When regulations are relaxed, disasters happen.

The bridge in Miami wasn't finished. They were testing the integrity of the newly placed span by loosening and tightening cables. They should never have allowed traffic to drive under the bridge during tests and until it was evaluated and signed off by the engineer in charge .

Bad Wigins wrote:

There probably are fewer bridge failures elsewhere, but also fewer bridges. USA builds way too much crap. WAY too much. The people think that life is good in a concrete and steel jungle for some sick reason.

Congrats on a ANOTHER stupid post.

Probably concrete and steel from China.

Had it been concrete and steel from the USA, this would have never happened.

...or something like that.

Unsafe Arches wrote:

I feel the main enemy hear is gravity.

Agreed.

Does anyone else find it suspicious that first Hawking dies and then this bridge collapses?

Gravity must be stopped!

Cantilever wrote:

I mean like physical ones.

Do these crash/break all the time in the rest of the world?

I can think of some famous ones too.

Atlanta - 2017

Minnesota - 2007

Alabama (train) - 1993

Tampa Bay - 1980

Gallipolis (OH) - 1967

And of course:

Tacoma Narrows - 1940

Any others?

I won't count Oakland (1989) as part of the earthquake, those things happen.

ALL THE TIME?

Any idea how many total bridges have been build in the US? A dumb knee-jerk post if I ever saw one.

Reflects our attitude wrote:

The bridge was not yet in use, scheduled to be completed next year. It would have connected FIU’s campus to the town of Sweetwater. “It’s about student safety and connecting with Sweetwater,”

They'd spend millions on a bridge, yet would not consider a road diet. The lengths people will go to stay in their cars.

Not everyone is an idiot on LRC!!!

Cantilever wrote:

I mean like physical ones.

Do these crash/break all the time in the rest of the world?

I can think of some famous ones too.

Atlanta - 2017

Minnesota - 2007

Alabama (train) - 1993

Tampa Bay - 1980

Gallipolis (OH) - 1967

And of course:

Tacoma Narrows - 1940

Any others?

I won't count Oakland (1989) as part of the earthquake, those things happen.

Wait, the Atlanta bridge collapsed because of a fire being set. That is hardly a building issue.

Plus you have a few bridges out of how many thousands in the country?

I'll tell you what the problem is....

We just don't teach basic math anymore in USA.

This was the spirit of the 60s... with New Math (T. Lehrer), including matrixes....

I heard one math professor (as told to me by his grad student) said that the main "problem" in his field of research (some sort of Nobel-winning material I think) is that the analysis angle was weak because "nobody wanted to build pee-addict bridges" back in the 19th century and the field only recently developed.

But now USA can't even retain proper bridges, let alone ones that druggies are urinating on all the time.

Here in SoCal they live in vacated rivers. From what the guy said, I got the impression the "single variable" case was known OK how to deal with this, but when you have multiple offenders (variables) the boffins don't what to do, and are still classifying categories of represented perps.

So it doesn't surprise me that during Spring Break party festivities in Florida, that the collapse came crashing down.