Huh. No mention of what effect the $4 billion federal funding rescission may have had on states' abilities to keep up with inspections. Where's the "why" in this article? Do they think the DOTs are skipping inspection because they'd rather sit home playing video games?
A couple of points:
1. As discussed in another thread, the Minnesota collapse is believed not to be attributable to a failure in inspection practice.
2. I'm not really questioning the 2-year cycle for ordinary bridge inspections, but the strict cycle for fracture-critical bridges (a different type of inspection altogether) is a serious waste of resources. Work is afoot within the steel bridge world (including both DOTs and FHWA) to change to a more rational inspection scheme. There's simply no reason to keep a young bridge on the same inspection schedule as an old bridge, and reducing inspection frequency on bridges at the beginning of their fatigue life will allow DOTs to focus more resources on bridges that really need more attention.
Resources are FINITE, and getting more finite all the time. Rant about political tax priorities deleted.
Inspections do not show design deficiencies or load repetitions for fatigue analysis. Inspections do NOT fix any problems at all, merely show the problems. We need more repair and less inspection.
Excellent point, civilperson. All those deficient/obsolete bridges mentioned in the article got labeled thus as a result of inspection. More inspection won't reduce the number of deficient/obsolete bridges, but increasing the inspection budget at the expense of the repair budget will allow that number to increase.
Please remember that the rating of deficeint, or obsolete merely relates the current condition of the bridge to today's standards, and may or may not have anything to do with the bridge load carrying capacity.
What I think is scary, is that a sructural engineer license, is not required to inspect a bridge structure of any kind. Only an FHWA training class. Having taken this class, it is a joke. The inspection program really needs to be updated, especially with today's more complex type structures.
I think the 2-year inspection cycle may be excessive for a new structure (10 yr or less in age). However, fracture critical bridges, depending on their condition, can be recommended to be inspected on a 6-month cycle if deemed necessary.
The problem comes down to funding. I agree with civilperson that we need more repairs, however, without the inspections, we wont know what to repair! Current estimates show that most DOT's dont even have enough money to repair the infrastructure they currently have. Unfortunately, until there are more collapses and loss of life, I dont see lawmakers having the guts to propose spending increases, which is a shame!
stguy11 - I've done bridge inspection in four states and each required a PE license and training. Granted the training programs might leave something to be desired. Bridge inspection - as with any type of strucutral inspection - requires a certain intuitive ability to understand the interaction of the parts. This is something that can't be taught. I've seen it first hand with young engineers, who, are primarily the ones doing the inspections.
I agree completely with your statement about deficient and obsolete but again this is something that the public doesn't quite grasp. I doubt that the average person doesn't know that the most common causes of collapse are scour and impact. It generally takes a lot to collapse a bridge. I've seen a lot of strange things and I'm sure you have as well.
For example, in 1985 I inspected a concrete rigid frame; the rating was 3 on a scale of 7 due to extensive spalling of the intrados; 23 years later, still standing, the rating is still 3;just more spalling; every 6 months a new yellow flag. It's been programmed for replacement, but not until 2017.
I agree, intuition/experience is definitely needed, especially on the complex, and fracture critical bridges.
Regarding the PE license, was that for a team leader, or just an inspector? The NBIS requirements indicate a team leader needs the PE, but the inspector does not. While the team leader needs to be present at all inspections, my understanding is that they dont need to witness all of individual elements of the bridge structure during the inspection.
Congrats to the 4-states that require the PE license. They are definitely on the right track.
Even if they were overworked or understaffed, falsifying reports is inexcusable. Better to have MSNBC run a story on how you're not getting your inspections done.
I agree that these guys behavior was inexcusable, unethical and extremely unprofessional.
That being said, the story mentions that this inspection team was responsible for 1300 bridges in their region. Is that an excessive number of inspections for a two man crew to get done every 2 years? I do the odd inspection every now and then but I do not have a frame of reference for how many bridges an experieinced two man crew can do in a day.
Here is MSNBC's story on the incident. It talks about Georgia being a state that has a 100% on-time inspection record. It also notes that neither inspector was a PE.
