The Bridges of Wise County, Texas

It doesn’t matter if you are a compassionate conservative, a neocon or a liberal we all have to drive and we all have to drive across bridges. So, when does a Republican care about infrastructure? When it effects them.

CBS 11 investigators have learned that Dozens Of N. Texas Bridges Structurally Deficient

CBS 11 News Investigator Robert Riggs obtained a confidential list of structurally deficient bridges in Dallas, Denton, Collin, Kaufmann and Ellis counties. At least 15 of the bridges in those counties are in worse condition than the bridge that collapsed in Minneapol

You will notice that Wise County is not on that list. It seems that the Texas Department of Transportation has refused to release any information about Wise County. CBS 11 has issued a Freedom of Information request to obtain the information.

While we are waiting to learn the status of our bridges, entertain this thought:

Ali Abolmaali, Professor of Structures at the University of Texas at Arlington told Riggs, a structurally deficient bridge could be a disaster waiting to happen. “It depends on the combination of loads that causes the failure,” Abomaali said

As for Wise County loads, has anyone else noticed the alarming increase of 18 wheelers using our roads in the past few years. Just this morning there were EIGHT in front of me on FM 455. That made me wonder: if there were EIGHT in that short span of time, how many travel on FM 455 in one day?

This country is falling apart! While we pay for bridges in Iraq that are built one week and blown apart the next, our infrastructure is deteriorating at an alarming rate. According to CBS 11, there are 2,100 bridges in Texas that have received the same “structurally deficient” classification rating given to the span that collapsed in Minnesota.

Also see: Texas bridges: It’s very bad news!