sci.research.careers

On Aug 3, 2:44 pm, Straydog wrote:
> Today's Wilmington DE paper.
>
> First time I'm seeing aerial photos of that thing. Say, that whole damned
> thing collapsed!!! All of it!! Gotta be couple hundred feet long!!!
>
> Then, the article says there's 77,000 structurally deficient bridges in
> the USA. And, I'm wondering how many, total, there are.
>
> One of the articles says there's something like 596,000 bridges in the
> USA, so its 13% that are in trouble. DE has a number of bad bridges, but
> the article says only 19 of the state's larger bridges are structurally
> def (SD).
>
> Another stat: says DE has only % SD for bridges over 20 feet long (I
> guess all those little culvert bridges, if they collapse, your car will
> just slump down a foot or two into some creek that might be 1-2 feet deep?
>
> Therefor, no BFD?
>
> Says % of Maryland bridges are SD, % in NJ, and 25% of those in
> PA. Any of you guys over there? Better take life preservers with you.
>
> Just trying to get the range. Are there any places where the fraction is
> high, like 50-75% or more, if anyone knows?
>

Look at that as a systematic problem. If you have ever been to New
York City, you would notice that the whole city is falling apart. At
every given moment some substantial part of its infrastructure is
either closed or under repair. The megapolis is not able to exist
without state and federal subsidies. Everything has been build in the
years when labor cost and materials were very cheap and nobody thought
about the cost of maintenance. Now all that (sometimes literally)
falls on the shoulders of the generation Y and all other who still
exist. The same story about New Orleans. People over there can not
play jazz by themselves. They need Army Corps of Engineers to maintain
dikes and levees. Who is gonna pay for all that? In the times of high
labor cost, growing deficit and outsourcing all construction must be
maintenance free. Like the Egypt pyramids.