Nipigon River bridge fails, severing Trans-Canada Highway

[FireGilbert]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunde...nada-1.3397831

The Trans-Canada's single point of failure has been exposed forcing drivers to take a crazy long detour through the USA. It is not even like this was some aging infrastructure that governments had refused to fix, it was a brand new bridge which opened on November 29th, 2015 (42 days ago)! Clearly something has gone very wrong in the design and/or construction causing it to fail during its' first winter.

Also, reminds me of South Park: "This is Canada, we only have one road".

[Dion]

This made me laugh.... I wonder if the engineer that designed this bridge gets fired,

Engineers are on site trying to determine what caused the bridge to fail, but "the reality is nobody really knows what happened," said Harvey.

[Canehdianman]

Was probably planned by those dastardly engineers to give them a new source of material for their iron rings.

[FlamingHomer]

Sometimes the lowest bid isn't always the best one.

[Looch City]

The Liberals did this.

[CroFlames]

It's tradition to have problems with new bridges on Canada's only road. The new Port Mann in Vancouver had problems too with ice chunks the size of baby elephants crushing people's cars because of the dumb design.

Still don't know why they didn't do a traditional suspension bridge there, and it's far more aesthetically pleasing.

[Poe969]

I live in Red Rock, the smaller community next to Nipigon and no one can really believe this has happened. I know some people that were caught on the other side but they were allowing pedestrians to cross on foot. They've just opened the bridge to one lane of traffic. The worst part about all of this is that the existing bridge was fine and didn't really need to be replaced but they did it because it's supposed to be the largest suspension bridge in Canada. They've already partially torn down the old bridge when they should have waited for this one to be fully functional.

[Ironhorse]

Isn't it a steel cable suspension bridge? Someone didn't do their temperature contraction calculations properly...

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by Ironhorse

Isn't it a steel cable suspension bridge? Someone didn't do their temperature contraction calculations properly...

My first thought as well, like a combination of the deck retreating towards the piers (more than normal) and the cables contracting pulling it upwards at the same time. Just looking at the deflection after breaking, the stress induced on the transition/bearing must have been crazy.

[troutman]

Should inspire the next Tragically Hip song.

[Bill Bumface]

Priest:
Follow the only road.

Man:
Follow the only road.

Canadians:
To go anywhere in Canada, you just follow the only road.
There's only one road in Canada. We call it the Road, the only road.
Hip-hip, hooray, let's hear it for our Road.

Road Workers:
And it's paved and wide and up to code.

Canadians:
You're off to see the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister of Canada!

[Nufy]

Screw you Quebec...

We're separating in Ontario...

You can keep Toronto.

[Poe969]

http://www.tbnewswatch.com/News/3798...ned_to_traffic

I can't post a picture but they "fixed" it by weighing down the side that was up...

[Fuzz]

HAHA

That should just about do'er. Let's go get some beers.

[Vulcan]

Bolts holding the girder to the bearing on an expansion joint broke on the bridge’s north side at 3:05 p.m. Sunday. When the bolts released, the cables staying the bridge tightened to support it, raising it about 60 centimetres.

I guess the question is what caused these bolts to break. In the other article a witness mentioned a strong wind but that seems unlikely to cause this. Another possibility is that the cables were putting strain on the bolts before they broke or as earlier said the weather screwed up the expansion joint. It should be interesting whatever the cause.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Well, this is a partially complete twinning of that bridge, so it's possible that the final design calibration, in terms of how the stress from the cables is dispersed across the bolts, works for the final, finished product but in the interim it was off?

I'm no engineer though.

[Looch City]

This is bringing back bad memories...I studied this stuff in steel design course a year ago. I did not do too well in that course haha

[topfiverecords]

Should have hired Calatrava.

[Jacks]

Government construction projects

[chemgear]

Separate!