Posted on 03/29/2024 9:22:10 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Could it really take twice as long and four times as much money to replace the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge than it did to build it in the first place?
The Key Bridge was built at a cost (adjusted for inflation) of about $200 million. Replacing it could take a decade and cost $400 million to $800 million dollars, according to experts in what has become a dismal field.
“To actually recreate that whole transportation network" could take a decade or more, structural engineer Ben Schafer told USA Today on Wednesday. Huge projects, Schafer said, now take “rarely less than 10 years."
Well, they didn't use to.
By comparison, the Apollo program that put a man on the moon required seven years, eight months, and 23 days. And — this is the really exciting part — everything about Apollo, from the massive Saturn V rocket to the "tiny" flight computer, had to be created from scratch. Those seven-and-a-half years included a monthslong delay following the tragic loss of astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee during an Apollo 1 dress rehearsal that ended in a deadly crew capsule fire.
Construction began on the Hoover Dam on July 7, 1930, and five years later, it was complete. It started generating electrical power on Sept. 11, 1936 — exactly six years, two months, and four days after the first shovelful of dirt was moved.
The Empire State Building was fully erect (heh) after just one year and 45 days of construction.
But those were all 20th Century projects, back when we used to get things done. Welcome to 21st Century America, where everything is needlessly time-consuming, expensive, stupid, or (most likely) all three.
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
I had relatives 1 mile from the epicenter, they had some water slosh out of their pool. A mile either side? heavy damage.
My best friend embalmed fully half the victims. She switched to front office work after that.
Half of it is paying off the grifters in local government who will deny or slow-walk permits if they don’t receive a “consideration”.
Tunnels exclude HAZMATS. I heard that a lot of HAZMAT traffic used that bridge.
It took the Romans about 15 years to build the famous Pont Du Gard which is 275m or 902 feet long.
The Roman Colosseum took about 10 years.
I guess we have regressed.
Mostly, it's due to corruption. By the Democratic Party.
A couple of them. The main one is the bridge-tunnel, with the tunnel under the shipping channels to and from the Atlantic. The US Naval base at Norfolk is a few miles upriver, and dropping a bridge would seal the fleet in.
The world’s largest building, built on a swamp, only took 15 months to complete.
They have to pay off all their libtard buddies
” it will probably be even UGLIER!!”
I don’t think that is possible. That was one ugly bridge.
Turn the job over to the Amish and they’ll have it done in less than a year. There’s no affirmative action hiring that goes on in that community.
There are already two tunnels. Hazmat, fuel trucks, oversized loads etc cannot use a tunnel. There must be a bridge.
$200 million doesn’t even count the kickbacks.
How long?
Substantially longer than it will to build the entirely new Island port for Hamas from scratch off the coast of Israel.
You know... the strategic port which will probably be used by the Obama/Clinton uniparty to attack the only real democracy exstant in the Middle east.
I started whistling as soon as you posted it
ouch
I miss her.
Don’t forget to add in he bike lanes for only an additional $2billion
Beijing is building roads & bridges. America should take notice ... American Trucking Associations https://www.trucking.org › news-insights › beijing-buildi... For years, Beijing has been making investment in transportation and trade infrastructure — within its borders and also beyond — a top priority....Thirty years ago, there were no highways in China. Today, its national highway network spans more 88,000 miles — more than any other country in the world. And they are not slowing down: since 2011, the Chinese have built 6,000 miles of new highway every year.
There are [2019] 178 million daily crossings on over 47,000 structurally deficient U.S. bridges.
America’s trucking industry knows what’s at stake. We move 10.77 billion tons of freight every year — a task made ever-more challenging by the atrocious condition of our country’s roadways and bridges — and that tonnage is projected to grow by 27% over the next decade - https://www.trucking.org/news-insights/beijing-building-roads-bridges-america-should-take-notice
The US Turns To China. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSQAqMDi1yQ
May 23, 2023 This 15-mile, $6.7B bridge is a symbol of China’s ambitions, and its problems.. Even in a land known for gargantuan, record-breaking infrastructure, this project is turning heads. At 15 miles long (24 kilometers), eight lanes wide and featuring artificial islands and an undersea tunnel, China’s $6.7 billion Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge is nothing if not ambitious. To much fanfare in the country’s state media, the bridge’s builders recently claimed a new world record by paving in a single day more than 243,200 square feet (22,600 square meters) of asphalt, the equivalent of more than 50 basketball courts.
Yet strange as it may sound, this is not the world’s longest sea bridge. That honor belongs to its 34-mile long neighbor, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge – just 20 miles away. ...Like its sister bridge in Hong Kong, when the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge opens to traffic next year after eight years of construction,
*
When Deng Xiaoping arrived at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington in January 1979, his country was just emerging from a long revolutionary deep freeze. No one knew much about this 5-foot-tall Chinese leader. He had suddenly reappeared on the scene after twice being cashiered by Mao, who famously described him as “a needle inside a ball of cotton.” But in 1979 he knew exactly what he wanted: better relations with the U.S. He and President Jimmy Carter appeared to be serious about resolving differences.
- https://www.chinafile.com/library/nyrb-china-archive/china-strikes-back
On January 1, 1979, the US officially switched diplomatic recognition from the Republic of China (ROC), or Taiwan, to the PRC. In announcing that decision two weeks earlier, president Jimmy Carter said the historic change he was announcing “will be of great long‐term benefit to the peoples of both our country and China.” 
https://asiatimes.com/2019/05/does-us-regret-its-past-china-engagement/
President Bill Clinton talks with former President Jimmy Carter as former President Gerald Ford looks on, at a China trade event.
Loss of religious faith, decadence, legal positivism / worship of formalized systems.
Just patch it up and don’t let 18 wheelers cross it.
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