State Messed Up Construction of US59 Bridges -- $2.3mil fix

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/topstory2/836719

The state is now going to have to add reinforcing braces to the four new bridges over the Southwest Freeway -- yes, the ones they just declared finished. After doing some computer model wind testing, they determined that the bridges could fail during hurricane force winds.

The crazy thing is, the braces were in the origional design, but they decided to remove them to make the bridges look nicer. The bridges apparently are stable without them (unless we have a hurricane). They didn't run the wind tests until after the bridges were built.

The cost to us taxpayers to add five braces to a bridge after it is built... $527,000 each! (The bridges cost $1.5 million each to build).

I hate it when a government agency wastes our money for such stupid reasons. That's an extra $2.1 million down the drain, plus 4 more months of construction for the residents of those neighborhoods to deal with.

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Note -- Correction to title = 2.108 mil to fix. Sorry.
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Stay Cool...

[This message has been edited by dc sports (edited March 01, 2001).]