Off to fix a bridge

No great or big post today as I had to go to bed early, to get up early, to take a 4 hour drive to a pre-construction meeting for a bridge repair. Then it's 4 hours back to my hotel (yes, that's a pot-load of driving in one day). Chances are good, if you're reading this during the daytime hours, that I'm behind the wheel of my work truck at 105 kph.

Thank goodness for cruise control!

What will I be working to fix? Well... here's what the bridge looked like from the road. For reference, there really SHOULD NOT be a dip in the bridgerail. EVER.Here is WHY the bridgerail looks so funky - the classic 'leaning tower of bridge pier' pose. An indication that something is seriously wrong with the foundation of this bridge.So, it was either fix the bridge, or replace it. In the interim we closed the bridge. Or rather, we told the County, in the strongest terms, to close the bridge. Which advice the County promptly ignored and continued to drive school buses across this bridge.

Let's see... the safety of our children is how important again? But the bridge is still standing. Why should we close it? It's inconvenient to drive the extra 10 km / 6 mi. to the west to detour around the bridge. Never mind that the advice of our consultant's senior bridge inspector (engineering technologist), their bridge engineer, the government's bridge manager (also an engineer), and heck, the two engineers that the contractor hired after he got the contract are all telling us we shouldn't be driving on this bridge. Let's let Joe Q. Public continue to drive on the bridge.

Yeah, it's the sort of thing to give people in my line of work nightmares.