"It just broke," it was all Brian Kidwell can understand.
"My intuition is a very heavy burden approached. It could have been a totally legal burden", but more weight than 140 feet long viaduct could handle, Kidwell, assistant district engineer for local Missouri Department of Transportation said.
"I do not know if I've ever seen a bug like that ... like, at night."
something unusual happens around the center loop of one state to another, which enters its second half-century of existence. Engineers regards the financing of the rehabilitation of infrastructure in the short term, while some planners speak eliminate whole sections in the long run.
Everywhere in the loop, including the section I-670, more than 40 viaducts built in the 1950s and 60s are in need of attention. MoDOT says they are structurally strong enough to pass inspection every two years. But this is also true for the Grand Boulevard bridge, when inspectors are not only eight months are considered adequate.
Then he exploded.
"A great failure," Kidwell flame.
Kidwell was standing in the eastbound I-670 shoulder, where pieces of concrete the size of the pork chops had fallen from the bottom of the bridge over the Great. steel poles were run on the site earlier this month to block a region of the duration that has been giving an inch.
On the west side of the viaduct, then to the south of the great tracks, he showed a fissure in the form of S that had fallen to 20 feet inspection in September.
bridge engineer Rick Kingery had kept an eye on the structure of 53-year-old in subsequent months. Driving in April, he saw the formation of the crack.
"It was so strong," he said, "is not something you can stick your arm." But how S would be open to this point when tested again on the morning of May 6
He called Kidwell within minutes.
"You have to be here," Kingery said. "I want to close this bridge." And state inspectors did that day, closing lanes and sidewalks pairs overpasses.
compensation and orange striped barricades now block entries where 9,300 vehicles crossed every day.
The state expects to replace the bridge December at a cost of about $ 5 million, which will come out of the budgets of other road projects on the books. The city would like to see at least MoDOT extend a sidewalk and add more disconcerting to reduce road noise, which could increase the price.
And what about the other bridges around the I- 670/70/35 loop below - 64 bridges across by Count MoDOT, most of which have remained for half a century or more?
"We believe that the remaining bridges in the downtown loop are safe," the department said in a statement Thursday.
He continued: "All of our employees observe the roads we travel in our region, both on and off the clock."
MoDOT also depends on the eyes of the police, local public works officials and travelers.
In the only link between South Charlotte Street and Broadway, according to the documents Modot six bays on the I-670 were completed between 1961 and 1966, while the north and south running. Construction began in 1963 on the widest bridge four lanes wide, which opened to traffic the following year.
(In the last decade, the Bridge Street McGee retired and others, including her Grand-have been improved with handrails and more accessible walkways. The bridge on the main street was rebuilt to accommodate the new tramline .)
The northern loop has at least 10 bridges built in the 1950s.
Your future may require more than one, engineers and regional planners say Band-Aid repairs.
"If you were designing the loop from scratch, not look like it does today," said Ron Achelpohl, director of transport and environment in the Regional Council of Mid-America. He referred to the access points too close, forcing vehicles to weave and dodge.
"By the time the course was in Kansas City to remain competitive, the center had to be very accessible to cars," he said. "The idea was that the future (residential living) n 'had not. It was in the suburbs."
Now, residents of the city again.
Big Bang
Recent boldest ideas guess the oldest part of the loop of the road on the north side, being eliminated forever.No wonder the developers call the Big Bang plan. Start with the dismantling of the trench milelong speed traffic dividing the central business district and the River Market. Develop the property into something attractive, for example, an important headquarters in search of a campus that could bring 12,000 or more new jobs in the center.
At the request of the direction of the city and the Regional Council of Mid-America, a group supervised by the Directorate area Urban Land Institute presented the idea in a report in February.
"This is just the beginning of what will end up being a long process of planning," Achelpohl said. Officials must first decide replace or simply repair the Broadway Bridge, which opened in late 1950.
"For now, it remains to be seen whether this is a viable strategy" for removing and renewing the north-loop tape, "he said.
The reorientation of about 70,000 vehicles a day now in the north of the road to the other three sides of the loop could improve "connectivity", improve the pedestrian experience and bring a new development center, the thinking goes. The excavated platform could be converted into two or three levels of underground parking.
Connectivity - a more aesthetic integration of roads, sidewalks, bike lanes and parks - is gaining ground in other cities carved concept and a bridge for the post-War era rush into the road.
"It's true everywhere. We operate differently as a culture we did 50 years ago," said public works spokesman Sean Demory Kansas City. "We have different targets of what makes a perfect trip" and a desirable city landscape.
A summary written by the student group the Nordschleife played in a variety of choices of public and private funds, all totaling hundreds of millions of dollars to redevelop the property above the site of the existing road.
MoDOT, which owns most of the loop, said he is open to the suggestion of a day of the closure of the northern section. But for now, a replacement of the bridge projection Broadway $ 142 million topped the list of priority status for roads in the region.
And this work could be five years or more on the way, the engineer Kidwell said.
"We just do not have the money to fix everything that we have to solve," he said. He noted that the fuel tax to the state to finance road construction has not risen in 20 years.
The loop of the city "was a huge investment for our parents did that was with us all our lives," says Kidwell Middle Ages. "We just got our driver's license and started using it. We take for granted.
"Now that this begins to wear, it might be time for people to re-imagine" how they want to travel through and around the city center.
Reimagining safe: at least one plan in 2010 photographed all traffic on the loop that goes in the same direction, as if you are in a giant roundabout.
Before this idea, a study conducted by the architectural firm HNTB proposed put a lid on the south I-670 loop. Soil, landscaping, roads and trails planes pass overhead, making for a nice place with freeway traffic noise down, out of sight.
HNTB released its latest report on "South Loop Link" in 2009 after years of discussion. The proposals were latent in the middle of the stressed state and federal coffers.
"It's an amazing idea," Demory said. "And it would be extremely expensive" at $ 175 million or more.
Crosstown
What we now call the I-670 and South Loop began as "Crosstown Highway," finally connects I-70 and US 71 east to I-35 west.Eight lanes wide and less than nine-tenths of a mile long, which costs about $ 30 million in 1965 dollars, the equivalent of not quite $ 230 million today. most took 1960 to complete.
The first flyover appeared at the east end, and construction in general, to the west.
Star marveled at the work of the current road a few months before the opening of the Great Bridge:
"They dug in underground forgotten pieces and tanks clashed with limestone formations inflexible, throughout Kansas City archeology excavation of a cannon through the center of the city."
At the lowest level Crosstown Highway, about Walnut Street, a team cracked on a wall of rock and water flowed at a rate of 220 liters per minute.
"Crosstown road opened a few blocks from this week and motorists can already make a difference," reported The Star in July 1967. By then, the work was "underway for many years is hard to remember exactly what area was as before it starts. "
However, at the end of the great bridge it can occur in a single day, according to MoDOT. And maybe recently, such as concrete that fell last month near the median of I-670 appeared clean.
This does not mean that the viaduct has continued to deteriorate. I-670 motorists could see exposed rebar on the chassis and on the sides, on top of the S-shaped gouge on the west side.
This bridge and some other around the loop are of a design "sonovoid". Empty bottles were incorporated into the cover concrete poured around them, so lighter range. It is possible that the autumn rains and winter seeped below ground and frozen, the weakening of the cylinders.
The state needs to further investigate the cause of the failure, said Andy Hermann, former president of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
"It's the first time I've heard of this happening to a sonovoid bridge, so maybe it's an isolated case," Hermann said. "But it could be something chronic? The (Missouri) Department will have to look into that."
MoDOT said the damage occurred after the inspection in September is a block southeast where a huge crane and other equipment are parked to lift the skyscraper Two light.
Kingery Kidwell and wonders whether the proposed luxury apartments somehow contributed to the strain on the west side of the bridge. a large truck that passed the site could have caused the duration of sagging bust and below the ground, without the knowledge of the above factors?
Kidwell said he had no way of knowing.
However, he acknowledged that some busy bridges over 50, causing irreparable damage can be compared to "the straw that broke the camel".
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