The San Francisco Bay Bridge is closed while engineers fix a cracked “eyebar” – a structural member that transfers weight to the main supports.
Here’s hopeing they do a good job of it.
Or at least, let’s hope they do a better job than the reporters who are writing about it. Because since the 35W River Bridge collapsed, it seems everyone is a structural engineer.
Eyebars are known to suffer from fatigue cracks.
The same design was used in the Interstate 35 bridge in Minneapolis, which collapsed in 2007 and killed five people.
Well, maybe in the same sense that both bridges had roads running over them. The 35W bridge was a conventional arch-truss bridge with, to the best of my knowledge, no eyebars; the Bay Bridge is a combination of trusses and a suspension bridge. Completely different structures.
But other than that…
And while normally I’d point out that the collapse killed thirteen people, I’m assuming the other eight disappeared due to California’s taxing and spending.
Less to do with the design and more to do with the terrible blow the bridge suffered 20 years ago appearing in a mediocre James Bond film.
I thought the 35W bridge collapsed because Gov. Pawlenty wouldn’t raise taxes.
THAT….. is fast work Mitch!
In addition to the James Bond film, the bridge also appears at the beginning of a Dirty Harry film (cannot recall which one – I think it might have been Sudden Impact) showing Harry driving EAST on the UPPER span of the Bay Bridge. Everyone knows that the upper span is the West-bound span.
And the Bay Bridge broke because Governor Schwarzenegger raised taxes (if those yahoos in Minnesota can blame their bridge problems on low taxes, I can blame ours on higher taxes).
And is saved by being in “Vertigo.”
Reading the comments to the article we get the same type of know nothings espousing their engineering degrees as we have here in regards to the 35W bridge.