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The bridge was inspected in 2006 and nothing was found. The deck needed to be replaced in 2020 according to the reports. I drive that bridge about once a week, today wasn't one of them.
Part of the problem in the Twin Cities is that they have effectively chocked the traffic with all of the construction. Only I-94 is not going through some kind of major project. I-494, I-694 & I-35 are all going through major projects.
My first thought about what caused this has a lot to do with MinDot not planning construction better. Because they have chocked off every way in/out and around the the area, people have no alternate routes to really travel. This was one of those alternate routes until the cut it off this spring.
So they took 8 lanes of congestion, narrowed it into 4 and then put all four lanes on the inside lanes of the bridge. My speculation here is that the bridge was never designed to be 4 lanes with all of the load being carried in the center of the bridge. There was no way to counter balance the load on the inside to the outside because those lanes were closed and they were stripping layers of concrete off making the outside lanes lighter. Over the course of a few months I am sure the weakened the bridge.
My condolences go out to all that were affected by this tragedy. I only hope my speculation is wrong because if what I think is right, and no one in the planning stages caught it before the tragedy, you have to start wondering about all construction projects. Why? Because I am not the smartest kid on the short bus!
Part of the problem in the Twin Cities is that they have effectively chocked the traffic with all of the construction. Only I-94 is not going through some kind of major project. I-494, I-694 & I-35 are all going through major projects.
My first thought about what caused this has a lot to do with MinDot not planning construction better. Because they have chocked off every way in/out and around the the area, people have no alternate routes to really travel. This was one of those alternate routes until the cut it off this spring.
So they took 8 lanes of congestion, narrowed it into 4 and then put all four lanes on the inside lanes of the bridge. My speculation here is that the bridge was never designed to be 4 lanes with all of the load being carried in the center of the bridge. There was no way to counter balance the load on the inside to the outside because those lanes were closed and they were stripping layers of concrete off making the outside lanes lighter. Over the course of a few months I am sure the weakened the bridge.
My condolences go out to all that were affected by this tragedy. I only hope my speculation is wrong because if what I think is right, and no one in the planning stages caught it before the tragedy, you have to start wondering about all construction projects. Why? Because I am not the smartest kid on the short bus!
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