I-95 bridge collapse / fire - Philadelphia

[brianl703]

People spend years studying traffic design, only to realize it's actually very simple: Every road built will go to capacity.

That's the sort of theory that resulted in WV 55 being made into a 4-lane divided highway named US48.

I took a drive on it over 10 years ago. It probably still gets LESS traffic than a suburban arterial.

 

[brianl703]

I know zero details about the fire, but find it interesting that out of all the places the truck could stop and catch fire, it stopped under a bridge.

Driver crashed, probably into the bridge abutment, causing the fire. If whatever happened happened anywhere other than under the bridge, the truck may not have crashed at all.

 

[UG_Passat]

People spend years studying traffic design, only to realize it's actually very simple: Every road built will go to capacity. Building extra roads for the contingency that a major bridge might be damaged by fire would be very expensive, and ultimately futile. It would be better to consider ways to reduce the risk of truck fires, and ways to reduce the damage that a fire could do to a bridge.

It's easy to say, build extra roads for contingency... it's easy in a more rural environment, where land to plan and built is plenty. But inside a major city, it's quite difficult. Philadelphia has extra roads built in, its city streets with lots and lots of traffic lights.

And traffic engineering was one of my easy-A electives back in college

 

[DriveHard]

Happened at a more horrible level in Minneapolis in 2007 I-35W - drove on that bridge many times.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Mississippi_River_bridge

 

[JHZR2]

Wow. Terrible place to have vehicle fire. OMG

Are both directions of bridge damaged ?

The underpass will provide for an easier way to repair this bridge than if there was a canal underneath bridge.

The entire I-95 roadway is elevated for miles through there. I had heard that both sides were impacted from heat. And that they found remains.

 

[JHZR2]

It's easy to say, build extra roads for contingency... it's easy in a more rural environment, where land to plan and built is plenty. But inside a major city, it's quite difficult. Philadelphia has extra roads built in, its city streets with lots and lots of traffic lights.

And traffic engineering was one of my easy-A electives back in college

It’s impossible to add more traffic capacity margin in Philadelphia. All the roads are right, some, like I-76 have been horrible for 50 years now, squeezed between a river and a cliff. They were supposed to improve/fix it in time for the bicentennial!

 

[walterjay]

If they pulled out all the stops and got to it that thing should be up and rebuilt in five weeks. If not somewhere in that time frame then we are in trouble as a nation.

 

[John105]

It's easy to say, build extra roads for contingency... it's easy in a more rural environment, where land to plan and built is plenty. But inside a major city, it's quite difficult. Philadelphia has extra roads built in, its city streets with lots and lots of traffic lights.

And traffic engineering was one of my easy-A electives back in college

We don’t even have streets with synchronized traffic signals, so to say we’re behind the times is an understatement.

 

[John105]

It’s impossible to add more traffic capacity margin in Philadelphia. All the roads are right, some, like I-76 have been horrible for 50 years now, squeezed between a river and a cliff. They were supposed to improve/fix it in time for the bicentennial!

I didn’t live here pre blue route and cannot fathom…

 

[UG_Passat]

We don’t even have streets with synchronized traffic signals, so to say we’re behind the times is an understatement.

I used to breeze through West Philly on Chestnut Street, when I get caught in along green stretch.

Likewise, going down Roosevelt Blvd, it was easy to time the lights to maximize your green lights.

 

[John105]

I used to breeze through West Philly on Chestnut Street, when I get caught in along green stretch.

Likewise, going down Roosevelt Blvd, it was easy to time the lights to maximize your green lights.

Chestnut and Walnut maybe in the past? I’ve seen signs saying 30 mph as if relics on chestnut.

My friend said he could go from Queens to midtown Manhattan without a single red light when he drove a certain speed. That actually discouraged red light running, no benefit to do so.

 

[UG_Passat]

It’s impossible to add more traffic capacity margin in Philadelphia. All the roads are right, some, like I-76 have been horrible for 50 years now, squeezed between a river and a cliff. They were supposed to improve/fix it in time for the bicentennial!

I remember when the Vine Street Expressway first opened, which made driving through Center City much easier.

But for new highways and bypasses, it's pretty difficult now.

 

[andrew_j]

And right over a bridge no less. That's gonna take only 3 years for the government rebuild if they're quick...

3 - 4 months with 24hr operations. Challenge of bridge conventional bridge construction is the concrete needs to set which can take up to 28 days. Guessing some alternative technologies or materials will be introduced to make this happen.

 

[andrew_j]

It's just another example of how our infrastructure is terrible. Without getting political, it's clear that our tax dollars are not going towards improving roads or city planning. We are so concerned about vehicle safety, yet very little thought seems to go into how our infrastructure is designed and maintained. One bridge going out like this should not have the kind of impact on traffic that it is having. When I worked in insurance, I saw so many accidents that were the result of poor road maintenance, and guess who ends up paying the lawsuits when someone sues the town/city/state? I mow the sides of the road at the end of my own street, since the town has not done it in years, and there have been several accidents there previously due to people not being able to see from the tall grass blocking visibility on an otherwise blind corner.

While you might be rightfully frustrated with infrastructure, this failure has zippo and nothing to with bridge condition and lots to do with the steel losing 50% strength around 1000F and finally melting at 2700F…..

 

[mk378]

We are so concerned about vehicle safety

This was a vehicle safety incident. A truck crashed, resulting in the death of the driver and collapse of a perfectly good bridge.

 

[SubieRubyRoo]

Get the Navy SeaBees in there. They would have something up in no time.

Seabees would have this done before DOT even had road cones out for the cleanup!

 

[TheLastWord]

3 - 4 months with 24hr operations. Challenge of bridge conventional bridge construction is the concrete needs to set which can take up to 28 days. Guessing some alternative technologies or materials will be introduced to make this happen.

Cutting through the red tape is a major problem. It worked here:

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-04-06-mn-42778-story.html

 

[Lapham3]

The driver was making a sweeping exit turn and probably too fast. We see trucks taking cloverleafs too fast and tipping over. That rarely happened years ago, but more often these days. We had one to the north of St Paul a few days ago and pigs, both dead and alive, were all over the freeway area.

 

[brianl703]

The driver was making a sweeping exit turn and probably too fast.

 

[Cujet]

If they pulled out all the stops and got to it that thing should be up and rebuilt in five weeks. If not somewhere in that time frame then we are in trouble as a nation.

I'll guess it is the latter. It might be easier to make a new bridge than to repair a fire damaged one. 3 years is my wild guess.