Trimess

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

IRONIC ISN'T IT?

Case in point about safety: While Trimet is building a new bridge across the Willamette, what steps have they taken to repair or replace the structural deficient Steel Bridge, rated one of the worst urban bridges in the U.S.?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Trimet does not own the Steel Bridge. Neither does Multnomah County. It is owned by the railroad.

Al M said...

Whatever the politics is that allows a new bridge to be built while the old bridge (which carries the ENTIRE light rail system) to fall apart is the irony, and typically American.

Nedwell said...

Yup, UP owns the bridge and leases the vehicle lanes and Max lanes to the state and Trimet. So, Trimet can make leasehold improvements, but how can they jointly rebuild without shutting down Max?

It does seem odd that our new Max bridge won't provide redundancy to the original Max lines that need to cross the Willamette. Think of all the "bus bridges" that Trimet runs during the course of a normal year. Then think of the effect of a future serious failure on a 101 year old bridge.

I wonder if UP's freight trains are totally out of operation if something really bad happens to the Steel Bridge? (I suspect that they don't have all their eggs in one basket - unlike Trimet.)

The Chauffeur said...

This is the bridge that UP uses now as primary:
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=45.575795,-122.748531&num=1&t=m&z=16