The Observation Deck

Click Here Please to go to WCPN web site and listen to the audio

What are your thoughts? At what point does this all become insane. Sounds like they are spending buku bucks to repair a bridge that needs to be replaced anyway.

Why is it going to take so long to build anew bridge?

How is this going to affect our little corner of the world (more shore way traffic?)?

And how safe do you feel driving on this hunk now?

I drive over this bridge every day during rush hour. Each time I think of Minneapolis but with a further drop to the Cuyahoga (at least it looks that way to me). I’m really starting to think I should be on the shore way.

I’d like to think the ODOT engineers are being overly cautious in light of Minneapolis. As I understand it, the collapse in Minneapolis was attributed to support plates being half as thick as they should have been. This combined with incorrect placement of materials by the contractor during renovation and heavy traffic during rush hour contributed to the collapse.

Probably not much additional traffic on the shore way as an easy way around is 490 to 77 but that will get backed up in morning and afternoon rush hour. During the construction on east 9th, a few guys I work with that live further west took 90 to west 117 to the shore way to get to downtown.

I say build new immediately

Maybe the State of Ohio could lease the innerbelt bridge to Hollywood and they could blow it up in an upcoming movie??? (for a fee)

That bridge has always scared me, just like the Fulton Bridge over the zoo. Thankfully the fulton bridge came down. I think the innerbelt bridge should come down. just taking trucks off of it is like a bandaid but not really healing the wound. I am glad that there is the shoreway, detroit road or even west 25th to get to downtown. i will not be on that bridge anytime soon.

Stephen Eisel wrote:Maybe the State of Ohio could lease the innerbelt bridge to Hollywood and they could blow it up in an upcoming movie??? (for a fee)

I like that idea. Blow the sucker up.

Or have an experiment where helicopters would place increasing amount of weight on the surface and have cameras placed all over the bridge to see exactly where failures occur. This would be real life rather than a computer simulated model. Think of what engineers could learn about structural failure with hundreds of tiny cameras strategically placed to capture every buckle, bend and creak. I wonder if ODOT could get federal funding for all of this, including the cleanup. Hollywood could be there to film everything......for a fee of course.

This probably won’t happen though, aren’t their businesses underneath?

The bridge worries me and my husband. Neither of us will drive over it.

Stephen Eisel wrote:Maybe the State of Ohio could lease the innerbelt bridge to Hollywood and they could blow it up in an upcoming movie??? (for a fee)

I'm with ya on this!