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Australian Bridge
- Thread starter Alistair_Heaton
- Start date
SWComposites
Aerospace
just needs a Mk. 1 bridge stretcher
JohnRBaker
Mechanical
This reminds of what happened to the Zilwakee Bridge over the Saginaw River in Zilwakee, Michigan back in the early 80's. They were building this high-rise, multi-lane bridge to carry I-75 over the river bypassing a drawbridge, and one of the sections of bridge tipped out of alignment, and what started out as a three-year project turned into a nine-year one.
I stopped and took some pictures showing the misalignment, which was left there for all to see until the state hired a new contractor to finish the job:
September 1982 (Minolta XG-M, 35mm)
And this one shows the misalignment better:
September 1982 (Minolta XG-M, 400mm)
And here's a linkto the Wiki article on the Zilwakee Bridge and the history of its construction.
The irony is that the reason for the bridge in the first place was because at least twice a day, the drawbridge had to open to allow a sand dredge to pass, which was bringing sand for castings to a GM foundry up river of the bridge. Now I-75 is one of the busiest highways in the state particularly with tourist going 'up-North' every weekend and when the drawbridge opened traffic could back-up for miles. But what happened was, after the bridge was finally finished, GM close the foundry and the sand dredge stopped making it's daily up and back run on the river. Granted, there were a few other ships which would come and go, but maybe only one or two a month, max.
And if that wasn't enough as to how taxpayer's money was spent, there was already the I-675 bypass which allowed traffic to bypass the drawbridge by going thru downtown Saginaw, pass over the river past where ships ever needed to go, so the bridge there was just a normal span. But eight-years after the I-675 bypass was opened, they started to construct the ill-fated high-rise Zilwakee Bridge, all because people didn't want to add an extra 10-15 minutes to their trip, which in most cases was already four to six hours long depending on where they started and where they were heading, using the bypass.
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
I stopped and took some pictures showing the misalignment, which was left there for all to see until the state hired a new contractor to finish the job:
September 1982 (Minolta XG-M, 35mm)
And this one shows the misalignment better:
September 1982 (Minolta XG-M, 400mm)
And here's a linkto the Wiki article on the Zilwakee Bridge and the history of its construction.
The irony is that the reason for the bridge in the first place was because at least twice a day, the drawbridge had to open to allow a sand dredge to pass, which was bringing sand for castings to a GM foundry up river of the bridge. Now I-75 is one of the busiest highways in the state particularly with tourist going 'up-North' every weekend and when the drawbridge opened traffic could back-up for miles. But what happened was, after the bridge was finally finished, GM close the foundry and the sand dredge stopped making it's daily up and back run on the river. Granted, there were a few other ships which would come and go, but maybe only one or two a month, max.
And if that wasn't enough as to how taxpayer's money was spent, there was already the I-675 bypass which allowed traffic to bypass the drawbridge by going thru downtown Saginaw, pass over the river past where ships ever needed to go, so the bridge there was just a normal span. But eight-years after the I-675 bypass was opened, they started to construct the ill-fated high-rise Zilwakee Bridge, all because people didn't want to add an extra 10-15 minutes to their trip, which in most cases was already four to six hours long depending on where they started and where they were heading, using the bypass.
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
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