Jed:
Look at it this way: the people (legislators, etc.) who wouldn’t give the DOT the money they needed to hire some consulting help, maybe someone with some experience on these types of designs; who said do your regular job without any decrease in output, we got lots-a bad bridges that we haven’t financed the fixin of, and do this new, rather unusual floating bridge too, on the same reduced budget, which we have so kindly bequeathed thee; do it in half the time and get it done real soon, because we promised the tax payers; and be sure to accept the lowest bid; and don’t hire any outside inspection or oversight during fabrication and construction, can’t afford it, gota give legislators a pay hike. They still have their jobs, generally screwing the public, and are going to raise taxes to pay for their errors, and they fired the chief engineer to cover their own A$$es. So, what’s new? That’s mostly what engineers are hired for these days, get it done fast and on the cheap, and take the blame if it goes wrong. You do have insurance don’t you? Those other people will gladly take the credit if it goes right.
This isn’t really news, except that it deflects the real blame from the people who want it done twice as fast and won’t pay for quality engineering work or construction. Hell, what are you waiting for, there must be a cookbook for that, get er done.
That's one way to spin it. Poor DOT engineers, forced to do designs they weren't comfortable with to make an impossible budget/schedule. And maybe that's the story, I don't really know.
From my side, on the private side of the fence, I see another option. "We're just as qualified as those overpaid profit monkeys!"
"We could turn out the design, in house, and save a whole lot of money!"
Or my all time favorite, "Let's bid the work out, us (the DOT) vs. them (private design firms) in a fair manner. And we'll evaluate the bids."
I work with a lot of city/county/other government entity engineers. There's some great ones. But they're not organized to turn out projects. Managing, commenting, asking questions, etc. is their expertise. Just because they have a PE doesn't make them a designer. I suspect the look of the end product makes it look easy.
I still hate to see anyone lose their job.
The bitter irony is that this is not the first time, i.e., it's not WSDOT's first pontoon bridge.
So there should be, or could have been, a cookbook, at least comprising proven ways to do it wrong.
I'm guessing that such a document does not exist, in part because prior budget cuts forced the departure of the people who learned from mistakes made in decades past, and who were being paid to reflect their slight incremental value over a new graduate with zero experience. ... at least that's how things seem to be working out elsewhere in America.
