The fancy-shamncy Marquette Interchange, touted by the state as being finished on time and under budget, has cracks and a fundamental design flaw on one ramp so severe that it's closed for emergency repairs.
What was the project built to - - a 30-year design standard? Fifty years? I really do forget, but the hype was endless.
The Wisconsin DOT in SE Wisconsin has had a lot of these problems:
A big section of the Hoan Bridge slipped and buckled a few years ago; smaller pieces are still falling - - into nets.
And there were those emergency repairs to three bridges in the Zoo Interchange earlier this year - - so should we think that when WisDOT gets around to spending $2.3 billion on that project, and the $1.9 billion in the I-94 North-South leg from Milwaukee to the Illinois state line that the government-road-builder complex will deliver us anything close to the new and rebuilt lands, bridges and ramps with shelf lives as promised?
All these so-called freeway (not so-free) improvements were sold to the public as safety upgrades, with the added lanes - - 127 miles total - - as mere throw-ins.
We knew going in that all that concrete would need repairs down the road, but after such a short period - - two years to be found unsafe?
As with the collapse at Milwaukee County's O'Donnell Park, this is hardly a confidence builder in government officials and inspectors who supervise well-paid contractors for jobs apparently not well done.
This just underscores the fact that road builders and their lobbyists have far too much sway over our elected officials, both Democrat and Republican.
ReplyDeleteIf only they'd spent it on communter rail - all of us would have been so much better of.
ReplyDeleteHmm, the moral superiority of transit means that design defects must be irrelevant if involving trains rather then freeways.
ReplyDeleteI hope this isn't too far off topic, but I was on I-794 North/(43)/(41) over the Menomonee River Valley last Thursday during evening rush hour, someplace I normally am not. I was behind a couple of very big, heavy trucks and the roadway seemed to me to be swaying. Does anybody happen to know if this is unusual -- or dangerous?
ReplyDeleteWhen freeways and parking structures are falling down or raining down concrete panels on unsuspecting citizens, where is the comparable "design defect" in rail, Doug?
ReplyDeleteCorrection: I was NOT on I-794 North (which would have put me over the Hoan Bridge); rather, I was on I-94 North.
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