Posted on 06/08/2018 3:20:41 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Ron Tutor, chief executive of Tutor Perini, said the redesign was not his firm’s fault...
“We designed it and they approved it and then they changed their minds,” Tutor said. “They had a change of heart.”
At least three other bullet train bridges in the Central Valley used the same design as the Avenue 8 bridge and are now being redesigned, according to a January rail authority status update, raising questions about whether potentially more costly designs will be required in the future. The previous design for Avenue 8, using what is known as mechanically stabilized earth walls, is generally considered cheaper than the new design, using cast in place abutments.
The rail authority has acknowledged that it is behind schedule and facing sharply escalating costs, but a new team of executives who took over earlier this year has vowed to make improvements to the execution of the program and re-establish its credibility as the project comes under the leadership of a new governor next year.
Engineering experts say the bridge errors shows such changes are badly needed.
“Having to tear down work and redesign it is an early warning sign of lack of program management,” said Robert Bea, an emeritus civil engineering professor at UC Berkeley and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. “It is very unusual. It is not common.”
…
The original bridge design had a retaining wall built with mechanically stabilized earth, which uses horizontal layers of reinforcement fabric to hold up retaining walls and concrete support pillars. Rail authority documents say that thousands of cubic yards of soil were brought in to build the bridge approaches. The new design has poured concrete abutments.
Mechanically stabilized earth structures are typically less costly to build than cast concrete systems, but have a high failure rate...
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Keep the right-of-ways. Just don’t build it.
As Willie Green says, “build it and they will come.”
Oh wait... they can’t even design and build a bridge for it!
Still the Bullet Train To Nowhere.
Couldn't they have used papier-mâché and Elmer's glue?
Its fascinating how Democrats are obsessed with nineteenth century transportation technology.
That’s apparently being funded by the gas tax increase.
Idiots.
Lunatics.
Several billion dollars and they don’t even have a bridge?
How is the same state that built the Golden State Bridge on time and on budget?
Sheesh.
I can see it now. 30 years the thing will be ready for opening after spending $150 billion to link SF and LA and the day before it opens a big earthquake hits, knocking at 50% of the bridges.
The greatest waste of money in world history.
Follow the money going to all the RAT donors in CA and right to Moonbeam and his Assembly cohorts, wanna bet?
IF it ever gets built.
Its safe to say though, none of us alive on this thread will get to ride it should it happen by some miracle.
Just bottomless spending up the wazoo and nothing gets done.
1. Build
2. Design
3. Raise estimate of cost and also extend delay
Like the article said, lack of program management and oversight.
But this is a political project, not something run by the private sector so completing a project isn’t critical.
If you have to ask, that’s a feature, not a bug - and not to worry, the taxpayers are covering the fiasco.
The Mex Met will never be finished.
What if the bridge authority ordered part of the “J” train torn down?
Liberal virtue signaling.
It was never about solving CA’s transportation needs.
Ten years after voters approved it, its still tangled up in paperwork.
You can see bureaucracy in and of itself is a miracle.
As such, it will be around long after the rest of us are gone.
That will still be finished before a 2nd-level US Highway extension first discussed here in the late 1950s
Shut it down.
“Mechanically stabilized earth structures are typically less costly to build than cast concrete systems, but have a high failure rate...”
Good thing they are in a geologically stable area.
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