Editorial: Timely bridge maintenance can save lives
In a small way, Minneapolis has had its 9-11 with the spectacular collapse of its Interstate 35W bridge. Though the cause and the casualties are very different -- at this writing, there were five confirmed deaths, with the number of missing being lowered to eight, both "something of a miracle" in the words of the fire chief -- it's still a shock to the nation's system.
It's not the kind of thing that happens in America, we've heard repeatedly. "Simply unacceptable," said U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters.
On the one hand, we should not overreact or suddenly think that driving over any of the Peoria area's five major bridges is akin to walking on coals with gasoline-soaked feet. With each passing day, the Minneapolis disaster seems more like a freakish concurrence of multiple failures, that one-in-a-billion shot no one could have predicted beforehand.
On the other hand, this really is a wake-up call in a state and nation that have been neglecting the routine maintenance of their transportation infrastructure. The Twin Cities' truss-style span had been considered "structurally deficient" as far back as 1990, which sounds worse than it often means in engineer-speak. It was among some 73,000 other bridges with that designation across the country, some 2,500 of them here in Illinois. Another 80,000 bridges are considered "functionally obsolete."
As a result, many governors, Rod Blagojevich included, have rightly ordered emergency inspections of critical bridges, beginning in central Illinois on Thursday. We're also due now for months of regret and recrimination and video replay, of second-guessing and worry about whether it can happen here. Of course, it can happen anywhere, with anything made by the minds and hands of men.
Still, it remains very unlikely. Locally, while three of the five major bridges crossing the Illinois River are older than the doomed, 40-year-old Minneapolis span, all have been built or rebuilt in the past 14 years. None gets even half the traffic count. According to the National Bridge Inventory compiled by the U.S. Department of Transportation, all are in decent shape.
We also have a lot of faith in the engineering know-how of Illinois' local DOT office, which won an award last year for the methods used, believed to be unprecedented, in renovating the Murray Baker Bridge.
Anyone who remembers that remarkable zipper wall that was used to control traffic flow on the McClugage Bridge during its reconstruction earlier this decade has to be similarly impressed.
Nonetheless, bridges corrode, contract and expand -- especially in the freeze-thaw cycle of the temperamental Midwest -- and take incredible pounding from ever-heavier trucks. Concrete cracks. Metal fatigues. In the rarest of occasions, it reaches a breaking point.
Unless, of course, governments are vigilant in doing those things that aren't as sexy as universal health care or improved schools. No governor or congressman or mayor is likely to get his name on a bridge for fixing a crack or rubbing the rust off or replacing a beam or a bolt.
Prevention doesn't produce heroes the way a disaster does. But it's heroic just the same.
Illinois hasn't had a comprehensive capital program since Gov. George Ryan's Illinois FIRST. The Legislature hasn't passed a road construction bond bill in four years. The Transportation for Illinois Coalition says that at least $5 billion is needed to catch up. Its cause doesn't seem to have gained much traction in Springfield.
Perhaps it will now.
Taxpayers may grumble. Inconvenienced drivers may curse the repairs and the delays. So be it. It beats what happened to a bridge in Minneapolis.
Peoria Journal Star