Too Big to Fall: America's Failing Infrastructure and the Way Forward

Notes

Notes Introduction 1. u.s. Department of Transportation, Research and Innovative Technology Administration, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, “Condition of u.s. Highway Bridges by State: 2008 (as of March 2009)” (http://www.bts .gov/current_topics/2009_03_18_bridge_data/html/bridges_by_state.html, accessed March 23, 2010). 2. Affiliated with Texas A&M University, the Texas Transportation Institute is an agency of the state of Texas that since 1950 has provided research and reports on highway, air, water, rail, and pipeline transportation issues. 3. Gary S. Becker, “The Infrastructure ‘Crisis’ Once Again,” the Becker-­ Posner blog, August 26, 2007 (http://www.becker-­ posner-­ blog.com/archives/ 2007/08/the_infrastruct.html, accessed May 1, 2009). 4. Quoted in Clifford D. May, “Board Faults Thruway Unit on Collapse,” New York Times, 27 April 27 1988 (http://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/27/ny region/board-­ faults-­ thruway-­ unit-­ on-­ collapse.html?pagewanted=all,accessed March 23, 2010). 5. Edward V. Regan, “Holding Government Officials Accountable for Infrastructure Maintenance,” Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science 37, no. 3 (1989). 6. George E. Peterson, “Financing the Nation’s Infrastructure Requirements ,” in Perspectives on Urban Infrastructure, edited by Royce Hanson (Washington : National Academy Press, 1984), 130. 1. A Tale of Two Bridges 1. Quoted in William D. Eggers and John O’Leary, If We Can Put a Man on the Moon: Getting Big Things Done in Government (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2009), 138. 2. Kumalasari Wardhana and Fabian C. Hadipriono, “Analysis of Recent Bridge Failures in the United States,” Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities 17, no. 3 (August 2003): 144–50. 3. Gray Plant Mooty, “Investigative Report to Joint Committee to Investigate the i-­ 35w Bridge Collapse,” May 2008 (http://www.commissions.leg 188 Notes to Pages 4–8 .state.mn.us/jbc/GPM_Report/InvestigativeReport.pdf, accessed September 9, 2008), 3. Hereinafter cited as Gray Plant Mooty, Investigative Report. 4. See Charles Seim, “Why Bridges Have Failed throughout History,” Civil Engineering 78, no. 5 (May 2008): 66–67. 5. John Brandon, “A Bridge That Monitors Itself,” Popular Science, October 16, 2008 (http://www.popsci.com/john-­ brandon/article/2008-­ 10/bridge -­ monitors-­ itself, accessed March 16, 2010). According to the data contained in the 2009 National Bridge Inventory and analyzed by Steven Chase, formerly of the fhwa, there are 18,857 bridges that require a fracture-­ critical inspection (u.s. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration , “Deficient Bridges by State and Highway System” [http://www.fhwa .dot.gov/bridge/deficient.cfm accessed March 4, 2010]). 6. Bridge 9340, I-­ 35W Over Mississippi River, Fatigue Evaluation and Redundancy Analysis, Draft Report, urs Corporation, July 2006, p. 2–15. 7. The “design load” of a bridge represents the amount of “dead load” (the physical weight of the bridge) plus its expected “live load” (the anticipated load of the traffic to be borne by the bridge) plus a factor of safety built into the design to handle unexpected contingencies. 8. Don North, “What Could Make the Skyway Bridge Fall Down?” St. Petersburg Times, June 4, 1978 (reprinted at http://news.google.com/newspapers ?nid=1346&dat=19800513&id=fdEvaaaAIBAJ&sjid=5PoDaaaAIBAJ&pg= 6786,5047958, accessed February 22, 2010). 9. Richard A. Walther and Steven B. Chase, “Condition Assessment of Highway Structures: Past, Present, and Future,” in Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Structures Section, 50 Years of Interstate Structures: Past, Present, and Future (Transportation Research Circular E-­ C104, September 2006, http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/circulars/ec104.pdf, accessed June 23, 2009), 69. Hereinafter cited as Walther and Chase, “Condition Assessment.” 10. Joseph E. Krajewski, “Bridge Inspection and Interferometry” (master ’s thesis, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 2006), 11–12. Hereinafter cited as Krajewski, “Bridge Inspection,” 22. 11. Ibid., 24. 12. Ibid., 23–24. 13. National Transportation Safety Board, Highway Accident Report: Collapse of the U.S. 43 Chickasawbogue Bridge Spans near Mobile, Alabama, April 24, Notes to Pages 8–13 189 1985, Washington: u.s. National Transportation Safety Board, 1986, (http:// openlibrary.org/b/OL17833256M/Highway_accident_report, accessed March 22, 2010). 14. Ibid., 4. 15. Ibid. 16. National Transportation Safety Board, Highway Accident Report: Collapse of the I-­ 35W Highway Bridge, Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 1, 2007, 2008 (http:// www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2008/HAR0803.pdf, accessed January 22, 2009), 134. Hereinafter cited as ntsb, I-­ 35W Bridge. 17. The weight of an empty 747–400 is approximately 395,000 pounds. The weight of a fully loaded 747–400, which carries between 416 and 524 passengers ,is875,000pounds.See...