So a bridge is being constructed where the main support structure has not yet been built???

Who in the world would let cars go under a bridge, that does not have the support structure, and test it at the same time? That is insane! Building the support first would make sense, but who says common sense exists anymore in some places?

How many “undocumented citizens” were working on it?

Who in the world would let cars go under a bridge, that does not have the support structure, and test it at the same time? That is insane! Building the support first would make sense, but who says common sense exists anymore in some places?

Uh, that would be our government officials - they hardly ever make mistakes or overlook things. Ask Sheriff Israel, he got 38 calls on the shooter and did nothing.

Maybe they thought it looked too ostentatious with all the cables and too phallic with the central tower.

So there was a minor problem, but just think how much money was saved by eliminating the center support.

Engineering experts say investigators looking into the collapsed ‘instant’ bridge in Miami will want to know why a central tower which is usually built to support a suspension bridge was not in place when it collapsed onto Tamiami Trail on Thursday afternoon.

It was part of the free stuff from Obama.

To do any of this while traffic is flowing is ridiculous.

This whole thing is a waste of everyone's time and the Peoples Money. The Bridge was unnecessary.

Bet they put in another traffic light instead, a traffic loop or a bypass.....for millions less.

If you scroll down the article a bit you’ll see a small video of the actual collapse. There are workers on the top of the bridge standing right where the failure occurs.

That is some of that feminist engineering they teach at Purdue.

Maybe they wouldn’t have been able to use the ABC (?) method of placing the bridge across the road if the support tower was there already. The order of construction does seem to lack common sense and logic.

This appears to be another one of those things that happens that just ain’t right.

No sense exhibited here. Why would anyone put that bridge in place without the important structures for support in place?

Will we get the truth? If not, who is going to be getting the cover up for?

This is such an obvious question that it surely must have come up in the construction management process.

I'm trying to envision a scenario where a prefabricated concrete bridge deck that weighs 950 tons can support its own weight over its full span length, but needs the tower and cable-stayed support when the entire bridge is completed and is subject to live loads only from pedestrians.

It seems obvious to me that the dead load of the bridge would dwarf the typical live load it is designed to carry.

Alberta's Child, P.E.

Colossal failure of arrogance. I’d call it criminal negligence.

0bama’s fault.

5.56mm

I have no doubt that the truss system they jacked into place was engineered to be self-supporting. But, if it was correctly designed to be self-supporting, then what was the purposed of the tower and stay-cables?

Maybe the bridge was designed to support its own weight (the dead load) with a small safety margin and the tower and stay-cables were to be added later to take the live load (the people crossing the bridge) and add a much greater safety margin. Or perhaps the tower and stay-cables were meant to be largely decorative and add drama.

I’ve never heard of such an approach and, I have to admit, it would be a weird design approach. But this bridge used the “innovative Accelerated Bridge Construction” method developed at the university. Who knows what they were capable of thinking.

The bridge would have to balance -

Half the bridge was over the roadway, the other half over the canal. The center tower was the balance point. Without both halves the tower would tip over

I guess they thought the section over the roadway would stay, supported by the approach walkway on one end and the tower base on the other, while they erected the tower, the other span over the canal, and suspension cables.

They thought wrong.

When we had riggers come in with cranes to bring in or remove heavy objects we’d close access to all areas affected.

What a bunch of morons.

Engineers say the design is known as a ‘cable-stayed bridge,’ which is a kind of suspension bridge, according to USA Today.

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(In Dr. Strangelove voice) The whole point is to use the cables to hold it up!

The planned design may have been “cable stayed”, but this bridge never got to that point, and it didn’t “stay”.