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 ...
Trump is having an audit done of the federal funds that have gone into this scam.
Sounds like a great idea to me. Set concrete bridge pillars on top of fill dirt. What could go wrong? After all, it’s not like California has mudslides, or earthquakes....
No problem. It’s democratville. There’s always more tax money.
affirmative action hiring or simple incompetence due to systemic education failures? you decide ...
“Its fascinating how Democrats are obsessed with nineteenth century transportation technology.”
Especially when the future is likely smart cars buzzing all over.
Liberals like solutions that force people to share housing and transportation so they can control the masses.
“Couldn’t they have used papier-mâché and Elmer’s glue? “
they probably did for the model, and since THAT worked ...
At what point does “burocracy” become “organized crime”?
“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.”
yeah, no shit Sherlock ...
There’s always the possibility of “Don’t kill the job [by completing it].”
Frankly I don’t give a shit what they do just don’t come begging to the Federal Government to bail this POS out. All the more reason to make sure DJT gets a second term.
>>>At what point does “burocracy” become “organized crime”?<<<
When the SWAT team breaks into your home at 3am and kills you for criticizing the project.
The whole bullet train project will cost 20 times it’s original cost estimate due to kickbacks and corruption between politicians and the various union construction contractors. Before it even started I could hear a giant sucking sound headed for my back right pocket. California is due for a voter revolt.
A buddy of mine owns a building and has, until recently, rented to Caltrans for about 20 years. Lucky him, they bought his building for him. He showed me some insight into the internal workings of this agency. There are basically 30 people who have to be copied with emails when it comes to changing a fluorescent light in the ceiling. He showed me the email chain. It was jaw-dropping how many man hours of work, and woman hours, went into the decision as to when to schedule a work man to come in and change two bad 4 foot fluorescent tube lamps in a fixture.
This faux train has no credibility. It never had. It never will.
Instead of wasting billions of dollars on a high speed rail system that odds are will NEVER be completed, Brown and his merry band of idiots in the legislature should be using some of that money to build desalinization plants on the coast.
But no, now they passed legislation limiting the amount of water a household resident can consume to 55 gallons a day. In the meantime, about 85% of the water consumed in the state is used for agricultural and industrial uses.
Once again, the liberals, now known as progressives, are at work limiting us at every turn instead of providing solutions to improve our lives and our economy. If I was not 75 years of age, I would get my azz out of this state. When I moved here in 1970, our governor was Ronald Reagan and life was great. Now, we have Moonbeam and his corrupt crew and this state has turned into a s**t hole.
Just one? In Boston, years ago, a candidate ran radio ads complaining that it took three people to change a light bulb in MBTA system. Supervisor, guy to hold the ladder, and the guy doing the actually work.
If it was in a subway tunnel itself, I could see at least two people for safety reasons.
$2300/inch.
This is a race against time.
Will a massive earthquake hit one of the metro areas before the train has completed construction.
I will place my bets on a 9.0 hitting before this boondoggle is finished.
I used to inspect (with others)about 270 bridges every two years. About 8 or 9 of them had MSE walls. Every one of them had serious problems in less than 10 years. MSE walls suck.
They lose support (mostly sand) from behind the walls. Geogrid does NOT keep it in like they thought it would. When they lose the support, that there is a major problem. I would like to have it outlawed, but I don’t have that authority.
We need water distribution systems NOT A BULLET TRAIN
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