By Jim Berard 202-226-5064
The National Transportation Safety Board’s finding that a design flaw most likely caused last year’s collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis will change the way all bridges are inspected from now on. That’s the opinion of Rep. James L. Oberstar (Minn.), Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
The Safety Board announced last week that the probable cause of the collapse was the inadequate load capacity of the bridge, due to a design error in the gusset plates. It further found that the gusset plates failed under a combination of substantial increases in weight due to modifications of the bridge and the traffic and concentrated construction loads on the bridge at the time of the accident.
“This will change all bridge inspections in the future,” Oberstar said. “Inspectors will now have to go back to the design of the bridge itself, to review the engineering documents. They can no longer assume that the bridge was properly designed.”
The 40-year-old bridge collapsed on August 1, 2007, killing 13 people and injuring another 145. It is estimated that there are another 740 bridges of similar age and design in the United States.
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