My dad, who lives in Kentucky, sent me a report by the Michigan Department of Transportation on bridge health today, suggesting that I perhaps alter my routes based upon the information contained within it. For the most part, I didn’t see anything too terribly shocking, but I was surprised to see that downtown Ypsilanti had one of the oldest, still operational bridges in Washtenaw County. According to the report, our Michigan Avenue bridge spanning the Huron River, was built in 1912. There were other old bridges on the list, to be sure, but they’d all been reconstructed in the decades since they first went into use.
I mentioned this to a friend, who generally knows about such things, and he suggested that perhaps it had been rebuilt at some point, but that record of it having happened had been lost. I suspect, however, given the volume of traffic it sees daily, that it’s never been rebuilt, but instead just patched up as needed. Still, though, it’s health assessment, according to the engineers who contributed to the report, is still pretty good. In fact, as my friend pointed out, it seems to be fairing better than the Cross Street bridge, which was rebuilt in 1984, and is already showing significant signs of distress. (According to this same friend, we’ll probably see weight-restrictions for the Cross Street bridge the not-too-distant future.)
I don’t bring this up to necessarily panic anyone, or to suggest that our downtown bridge needs to be rebuilt immediately. I trust the opinion of the civil engineers who last inspected it, and gave it a clean bill of health. I do, however, find it interesting that, for its age, it seems to be faring better than any other bridge in Washtenaw County, and wonder why that is. (This assumes, of course, that the report linked to above is correct, and that the bridge hasn’t in fact been rebuilt since 1912.)
Speaking of our nation’s aging infrastructure – most of which was built in the years directly following World War II – if you haven’t yet, I’d suggest reading up on the proposed National Infrastructure Bank, and asking your elected officials to support it.
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And if you *really* want to kill time on this, you can look at all the data mapped on SEMCOG’s website: http://www.semcog.org/Data/Maps/roads.map.cfm
We should have a 100 year birthday party on the bridge next year.
Is there a corresponding report on the health of Michigan’s tridges?
Last summer we were canoeing under the M14 bridge over in Bandemer Park and noticed a bunch of spray paint highlighting cracks and divots. None of the spots looked like a problem, but kinda makes you wonder.
I suspect that we could find articles about the bridge’s original construction in the Ypsi archives.
My dad was a civil engineer who built many of the larger overpasses (well his company did) in Metro Detroit. He said at one point there was a company marketing this material that was a steel that would rust but they said it only rusted to a certain point and then would stop and remain strong for many years. So in Detroit (I’m not sure where anymore) they built these bridges of this stuff and then a few years later realized it was WRONG and would not last nearly as long as they had claimed it would last. So when driving if you see a bridge that is rusty looking it could be make of this stuff…but maybe they have replaced them all by now. I’m not sure.
The other interesting tidbit he ranted about was how they knew how to build strong roads that would last but nobody would pay for them in this country (unlike in Europe). He really hated blacktop. He was a big fan of concrete.
That was my dad, man of much knowledge. All gone now though.
There are two ways you can leave your children saddled with debt. One is to leave them bank debt. The other is leaving them an estate that is in decay.
Our parents, in their greed, are leaving us both. We have massive national debt and a crumbling infrastructure that is need of billions in repair.
Something to consider when choosing their retirement homes.
The self-proclaimed “greatest generation” look especially great when viewedt next to their kids, the most “selfish generation” the world has known. The problem lies with baby boom tea partiers.
Here’s a photo of the previous Michigan Avenue bridge.
I didn’t know they had metal back then.
Maybe we can get it fixed.
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