[MNJohnnie]

Maybe the political class should be attending to this issue rather then spending hundred of billions of transportation dollars on “prestige projects” and “political legacy building” over the last 4 decades.

Maybe instead of siphoning off hundreds of billions with ear marks to reward fat cat political donors and special interest groups, maybe the political class should of been taking care of the infrastructure we have now.

Here is a good example of how existing transportation dollars have been misapplied by both the State of Minnesota, and the US Govt that has a direct bearing on this bridge collapse

This bridge was determined structurally deficient in 1990. It was build using 1960s engineering norms that were now out of date.

Maybe during the 1990s the State of Minnesota diverted over a billion dollars of State, and Federal, infrastructure dollars into an eco-freak boondoggle light rail project between down town Minneapolis and the Minneapolis airport. Maybe Minnesota politicians should of been tending to their existing infrastructure instead of wasting our money for political “legacy building” and “prestige” projects.

Using the currently stated cost for rebuilding the bridge at $250 million, for the cost of the light rail project this bridge could of been completely rebuilt from scratch 5 or 6 times during the 1990s.

This “Light Rail”project was largely the brain child of the Metropolitan Council . Either as the head of the council, or one of its most politically connected members, at the time was former VP Walter Mondale’s son Ted.

The sadly ironic thing here is the terminal for this billion dollar waste of state and Federal transportation dollars is about 1 mile from the bridge that collapsed.

Here is the link to the the website about the line. The bridge that collapsed is the one on the map where 35W crosses the blue line of the Mississippi River in the upper right of the map.

http://www.metrocouncil.org/transportation/lrt/lrt.htm

Additional information

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiawatha_Line

http://www.metrotransit.org/rail/station_detail.asp

[Wonder Warthog]

"Maybe during the 1990s the State of Minnesota diverted over a billion dollars of State, and Federal, infrastructure dollars into an eco-freak boondoggle light rail project between down town Minneapolis and the Minneapolis airport."

Good point. And the same type of boondoggle is going on in the Seattle-Tacoma area.

[Paleo Conservative]

Maybe the political class should be attending to this issue rather then spending hundred of billions of transportation dollars on “prestige projects” and “political legacy building” over the last 4 decades.

Congress should stop naming anything after living people especially congressmen. It actually used to be illegal to do that.

[lentulusgracchus]

This bridge was determined structurally deficient in 1990. It was build using 1960s engineering norms that were now out of date.

I wouldn't be too quick to knock 1960's engineering norms. Send someone to the moon, and then get back to me about their engineering practices.

[Dead Dog]

It was build using 1960s The problem I see with this is the concept of Obsolete. It ain't like computers, how many bridges in Europe are pre-1960 "obsolete". These damned things should last longer then the Roman empire. Concrete and Steel is forever...until you get Water or Salt infiltration.

The question should be "what did they use for di-icing"? Otherwise, we need to replace the Golden Gate, ect. This whole thing is a tax scam.