Posted on 12/21/2020 7:25:06 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
HOUSTON — Harris County Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday night to change the engineer of record on the Sam Houston Tollway Ship Channel Bridge after a review found one portion that had not yet been built contained a potential design flaw.
The Harris County Toll Road Authority hired an independent consultant, COWI North America, Inc., to review the design of the bridge. HCTRA deputy director John Tyler told KHOU 11 in January that COWI found the possible weakness in December 2019.
The design comes from FIGG Bridge Engineers, Inc., the same company behind a Florida pedestrian bridge that collapsed in 2018, killing six people.
“My outmost priority is the safety of our residents," Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia wrote in a statement. "Had I not made this decision shortly after taking office, Harris County could’ve had a dangerous bridge with tens of thousands of vehicles traveling on it every day. Taking FIGG off this project was not a decision we took lightly, however it needed to be done. Potential delays in completion of the bridge should be minimal, but that’s a small price to pay to keep people safe for decades to come.”
KHOU has reached out to FIGG but we have not received a response. We will update the article when we get their statement.
The portion of the design in question is the curved portions of the pylon legs.
In January, HCTRA deputy director John Tyler told KHOU 11 the issue was the pylons were not stiff enough to support the "bridge deck," the surface cars drive on.
"The pylon itself is a serious element within the bridge structure. It just needs to be done right," Tyler said in an interview with KHOU 11 in January.
HCTRA paused construction on the bridge in January.
(Excerpt) Read more at khou.com ...
Figg Bridge again.
Feel safer yet?
PING!
What a sexist decision.
Is there a Sam Houston Interstate Tollway?
There’s a joke in there somewhere about changing horses mid stream. But alas, it is intuitively small. So I will abandon this humor ship mid stream. In before someone retorts ‘that ferry never left the shoreline.’
Well, whatever floats their boat.
There’s your equality surcharge right there.....
Without analyzing a lot of technical detail, it would be hard for even competent engineers in the field to know whether this move was justified. Regardless, this is likely to have horrible consequences even if horrible consequences of a different type were avoided... cost overruns, completion delays, lack of confidence in the end-product, lawsuits, bankruptcies etc.
They’ve already done a good deal of work on the bridge, so this must have been pretty bad. But if it was a unanimous decision, they probably have good reason. The three Dems on the Commissioner’s Court are terrible and I don’t know the Republican who replaced Radack, but I know and trust Jack Cagle to do the right thing.
Engineers are not perfect. I have done lots of process designs for example but will not go past a certain point in the process without a reviewer. I will go further in the process if there is a formal QA/QC procedure to work within. There is still a line though that I stop at. Other experts need to step in to review in detail and tweak where necessary. Typically, I will have the full range of detail engineers reviewing and expanding on my process design. Again, typically I will be a reviewer of their work to assure that the process intents are carried forward. The 3rd party review is a normal part of the give and take.
Engineers are not perfect. I have done lots of process designs for example but will not go past a certain point in the process without a reviewer. I will go further in the process if there is a formal QA/QC procedure to work within. There is still a line though that I stop at. Other experts need to step in to review in detail and tweak where necessary. Typically, I will have the full range of detail engineers reviewing and expanding on my process design. Again, typically I will be a reviewer of their work to assure that the process intents are carried forward. The 3rd party review is a normal part of the give and take.
Yes. It’s not an actual interstate, like I-610 (down there it’s IH-610 or Loop 610). It’s actually a state loop route, informally known as Beltway 8.
Me too, engineer of the software variety, and totally agree. I had just returned from a hard fought soccer match and the post exertion endorphins were flowing, leaving me in a slap happy silly state. I was not agreeing nor disagreeing with the decision, merely pointing out that swapping engineers when the bridge is halfway over what is often a river is a little bit of a pattern match to the saying, with no regard to rightness or wrongness of doing it.
Knowing little about the project, however, sounds like the right choice. Doesn't happen often enough.
There is a reason I retreated from the joke.
The replacement sunshine skyway bridge built in 1987 has to be an illusion. Only white male engineers and contractors were involved.
How was it possible to build a bridge without diversity?
I am a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of Texas. In my professional opinion, any project should undergo as a bare minimum an internal cold eye review.
For major civil structural projects, I would not be surprised if government agencies authorizing projects like this require independent third party review, and such would be justified since public safety is involved (see most states PE Codes of Ethics).
Responsible engineers require peer reviews.
The more experienced they get the more they demand it.
Time for such should be periodic and built into the design and build schedule.
They apparently did not learn from the fiasco in which they paid a foreign company millions to build a new interchange at the 610 south loop and I45. The company walked away with the money, driving up taxpayer costs and creating huge delays (years-long) when a the contractor was replaced. I never actually heard about it in the news, but I met a rep of the contractor who they brought in to fix it.
I just checked it out on Google Maps. The look of it from the satellite makes me thing of Gary Sinise in “The Stand” grabbing that doctor by the lapels and yelling, “What did you do? What the HELL did you people DO???”
LOL. I think “city planning” in Houston must consist of kindergartners with crayons and a team of crooked lawyers and bankers scheming how to squeeze the largest kickbacks from every project. The only ones who can outdo their graft are ex-presidents building their “libraries”.
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