Archinect - News

1 in 3 American bridges are in need of significant repairs, new study finds

2024-09-16T11:49:00-04:00

The American Road & Transportation Builders Association’s 2024 Bridge Report survey has found 221,800 bridges in need of repair and 76,175 bridges that should be replaced across the country. The accounting, released in late August, claims that some 36%—or nearly 221,800 spans—require some repair work currently. States are simply not committing enough of their available bridge formula funds from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to adequately solve the repair problems, according to their analysis.

The report echoes the urgency of last year’s findings, which declared the exact same percentage of bridges to be "structurally deficient", requiring a total of $319 billion worth of repairs nationwide.

Department of Transportation commits $5B to repair significant large bridges across the U.S.

2024-07-25T19:53:00-04:00

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced that more than $5 billion in grant awards will be used to repair or replace nationally significant large bridges across the United States.

The money is being delivered via Large Bridge Project awards through the Federal Highway Administration’s Bridge Investment Program, which was established by the Biden Administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The program has set out to invest $40 billion over four years towards the reinforcement of the country’s bridges.

The grants will support the reconstruction, repair, and restoration of 13 bridges, which are viewed as being critical economic drivers, in 16 states. The projects will also address important safety issues, making the bridges more resilient to extreme weather conditions.

Previously on Archinect: 36% of all U.S. bridges are structurally deficient, study finds

The grants were available to bridges with total eligible project costs over $100 million, with minimum grant awards bein...

Tohoku University researchers develop real-time stress monitoring materials for aging infrastructure

2024-06-14T08:08:00-04:00

A team of researchers from Japan’s Tohoku University has developed a new mechanoluminescent construction material they say can be used in infrastructure to monitor daily use stress information in real-time in order to avert potential future catastrophes that may result from its aging stock of bridges, roads, and dams.

"What makes our material truly innovative is that it operates without a power supply, complex equipment, or on-site observation and is easily combined with IoT technology," Professor Chao-Nan Xu explains.

Image: © Tomoki Uchiyama, Chao-Nan Xu et al.

Their findings were published in the Applied Physics Letters in early April. The material works by responding to mechanical strain with luminescence using Pr-doped Li0.12 Na0.88 NbO3 (or LNNO). The LNNO finish is then applied to the surfaces of objects, emitting an afterglow produced with the application of a flashlight and then measured quantitatively using a series of light sensors.

"Our findings are expected to allevia...

NYT survey finds 309 bridges across the U.S. vulnerable to ship strikes following Baltimore disaster

2024-04-09T12:19:00-04:00

In the wake of last month’s fatal collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, the New York Times has published an assessment of other vulnerable spans across the country in danger of similar catastrophic failures due to the precarity of critical elements and various structural deficiencies.

According to the report, a total of 309 bridges are at risk of collapsing from a direct hit by an errant ship as was the case in Baltimore and nearly repeated in an incident last week at the Verrazzano Bridge in New York City.

Of those 309 surveyed, 193 bridges that service a significant number of motor vehicle traffic (10,000 or more cars per day) face dangers stemming from a lack of protective barriers at their pier supports and caissons. Among the largest are the Lewis and Clark Bridge in Washington state and the Crescent City Connection in New Orleans.

Recently on Archinect: Transportation Secretary Buttigieg admits ‘we don't fully know’ scope or extent of Francis Scott K...

Transportation Secretary Buttigieg admits ‘we don't fully know’ scope or extent of Francis Scott Key Bridge repairs in Baltimore

2024-04-01T13:02:00-04:00

"A lot goes into how that reconstruction will be designed, how the process is going to work," Buttigieg said on "Face the Nation" on Sunday. He noted that he didn't have an estimate on the rebuilding timeline, but the bridge itself took five years to initially construct. "Right now we don't fully know everything we need to know about the condition of the portions of the bridge that did not collapse."

Engineering News-Record reported that debris removal has already begun in haste at Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse site, where six people lost their lives last Tuesday, courtesy of the U.S. Navy, Army Corps of Engineers, and Coast Guard. The surviving portions of the bridge will first have to be removed piecemeal, although that work has no timeline.

Previously on Archinect: Major Baltimore bridge collapses after being struck by container ship

Speaking on CBS 'Face the Nation' on Sunday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Buttigieg said, “It’s a very complex process,” adding, “This is not going to happen overnight.” Maryland’s Governor Wes Moore told ENR, “To see this up close, you realize how daunting a task this is. You realize how difficult the work is ahead of us.”

The most recent reported costs for the bridge’s replacement are around $400 million.

The United States currently needs about $319 billion worth of repairs to bridges, according to an analysis that was released...

For World Engineering Day, these six bridges stand as examples of the complexities underneath every design

2024-03-04T20:06:00-05:00

Today is World Engineering Day, and to celebrate it, Archinect has curated a few outstanding bridge projects we’ve included in our recent news coverage to highlight critical pieces of infrastructure at an important time for civil and structural engineering in the Americas and abroad.

The six highlighted bridges provide examples of remarkable design standards and engineering practices while, in some instances, setting records and starting off new precedents for incorporating alternative materials, the conditions of a circular economy, aesthetic variance, building science, low-carbon construction methods, and more.

Strait of Messina Bridge from the Stretto di Messina SpA and Webuild (Sicily, Italy)

Rendering courtesy Webuild

What will become the world’s longest suspension bridge design when completed has been stalled in the project pipeline since 2003. Now, with the constant stop-and-start cycle behind it, the seven-year project will advance toward a likely construction start later th...

36% of all U.S. bridges are structurally deficient, study finds

2023-08-29T13:49:00-04:00

A study of every bridge in the U.S. Department of Transportation database has discovered a need for $319 billion worth of major repairs or replacement work on a total of 222,000 spans across the country.

The findings published in the American Road & Transportation Builders Association’s 2023 analysis also showed an overall decline of 560 bridges in need of repair versus last year. The news comes a little less than two years removed from the belabored passage of the $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a piece of legislation that included no less than $40 billion for bridge projects through the end of 2027.

Construction Dive has more analysis of the new report, which showed an increase in the overall share of bridges that are in "fair" condition simultaneous to a decline of those in both "poor" and "good" categories.

Previously on Archinect: A new infrastructure approach could save millions per year, say researchers

West Virginia leads all states, with 20% of all its br...

Construction update: Maltzan Architects concrete arches are coming together on the new Sixth Street Viaduct

2021-09-02T21:27:00-04:00

Concrete arches along Los Angeles’s iconic Sixth Street Viaduct are rounding into shape as one of Michael Maltzan Architecture’s signature projects nears completion.

Images courtesy City of Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering via Facebook

The $500 million project offers an update to the original span, which had to be demolished in 2016 owing to concerns related to its ability to withstand earthquakes due to the degradation of concrete in the original 1932 structure. (An arch from that structure was able to be preserved by the city later that year as over 1,000 components were given away in a promotion titled “Rock Day LA”.)

Images courtesy City of Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering via Facebook

The soon-to-be-completed replacement recently went on display at this year’s Venice Biennale will feature added green space in addition to the pedestrian walkways and the 40-foot high arches, which are now about 50% completed based on photos recently published by the city and Urbanize LA.

Images c...

A new infrastructure approach could save millions per year, say researchers

2021-04-21T11:19:00-04:00

With infrastructure negotiations currently taking center stage in the United States’ political discourse, researchers at the University of Georgia (UGA) have published their findings on how a new approach to infrastructure maintenance would save federal and state governments millions of dollars per year. A study produced by the UGA’s College of Engineering proposes a new model for bridge infrastructure which prioritizes the incremental maintenance of key components, in contrast to current national strategies that favor replacement and rebuilding.

When determining the long-term health of a bridge in the United States, current strategies rely on a basic broad depreciation formula. The researchers believe such a method generates overly conservative assessments of how long infrastructure could last before full replacement. The UGA’s “bridge coactive model” instead considers the interaction of 60 to 80 bridge components in predicting long-term bridge performance, and assesses how regular...

'Marine sponges' could inspire better structures, research says

2020-11-16T11:35:00-05:00

In a new paper published in Nature Materials, the researchers showed that the diagonally-reinforced square lattice-like skeletal structure of Euplectella aspergillum, a deep-water marine sponge, has a higher strength-to-weight ratio than the traditional lattice designs that have used for centuries in the construction of buildings and bridges.

Matheus Fernandes, a graduate student at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences said in a statement: "We found that the sponge's diagonal reinforcement strategy achieves the highest buckling resistance for a given amount of material, which means that we can build stronger and more resilient structures by intelligently rearranging existing material within the structure."

A new network of pedestrian and cycling bridges could come to New York City

2020-07-01T13:29:00-04:00

The NYU Tandon School of Engineering, T.Y. Lin International, and Sam Schwartz Engineering have unveiled a proposal for a new bridge connecting Queens and Manhattan.

The so-called "Queens Ribbon" proposal is part of a larger set of pedestrian and bicycle bridges proposed by the design team that aim to bring expanded connectivity to the New York City and eastern New Jersey region. The Queens Ribbon bridge, according to the group, would be the first new bridge crossing into Manhattan's business district since 1909.

The design consortium that created the bridge proposals was formed, according to a press release, in the wake of COVID-19 to "develop transportation improvements that would not only be of value during 'normal' times, but would also provide a lifeline in future crises."

The statement continues: "During the COVID-19 outbreak, New Yorkers have been turning to walking and biking in great numbers. After 9/11, Super Storm Sandy, the 2003 blackout, and transit strikes, walking ...

OMA, OLIN move forward with interlocking bridge design in Washington, D.C.

2020-04-21T14:40:00-04:00

A design team led by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), landscape architects OLIN, and structural engineers WRA has completed preliminary plans for the new 11th Street Bridge Park in Washington, D.C.

Aerial view of the bridge. mage courtesy of Luxigon / OMA.

Made up of two interlocking runways that meet to create a series of covered outdoor spaces, the bridge park links two sides of the Anacostia river that are currently only connected by highway overpasses. Like other recent active bridge designs, the overpass creates habitable green spaces along the ground below the bridge while also creating new overlooks and usable spaces along the span of the bridge itself.

According to a press release from OMA, plans for the bridge were reviewed and approved by the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) in early April. Late last year, The Bridge Park also ”received positive feedback from the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and is planning a presentation to the full Commission t...

Bridge inspection market around the world could top $6.3 billion by 2030

2020-02-25T18:27:00-05:00

Demand for routine bridge inspections is expected to rise four times its current level to reach a market valuation of $6.3 billion by the end of 2029, according to research firm Fact.MR. A push for infrastructure modernization in the Asia-Pacific region the largest share of the market at 35%.

According to Construction Dive, the need for more bridge inspections will be driven by a combination of aging infrastructure, exposure to damaging environmental conditions, and an increase in traffic volume, all of which speed up the deterioration of bridges. This is expected to raise the demand for the construction of bridges by three times over the next decade.

A 500-year-old unbuilt bridge design by Leonardo da Vinci holds up

2019-10-11T16:00:00-04:00

Researchers at MIT have proven Leonardo da Vinci correct yet again, this time involving his design for what would have been at the time a revolutionary bridge design. Although clients rejected da Vinci's work at the time, over 500 years later, the researchers have proven that his bridge would have worked.

Part of a proposal for Sultan Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire, da Vinci's bridge was intended to connect what is now Istanbul to Galata, a neighboring city. The proposed design spanned about 918 feet and was of masonry construction, making use of the compressive characteristics of an arc geometry. The team had to investigate the available materials of the time and study da Vinci's sketches and letter to the Sultan. If the design was implemented at the time it would have revolutionized architecture, writes Popular Mechanics.

"Leonardo da Vinci’s original drawing of the bridge proposal, showing a plan view at top and a side view (elevation) below, including a sailboat passing under the bridge, along with drawings that students Bast and Michelle Xie produced to show how the structure could be divided up into 126 individual blocks fthat were 3D printed to build a scale model." Credit: Karly Bast and Michelle Xie (Courtesy of MIT)

Santiago Calatrava fined $86,000 over slippery "lobster" bridge in Venice

2019-08-15T13:00:00-04:00

The sweeping structure, which spans the Grand Canal and was the first new bridge to be built in the floating city for 70 years, was designed by renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. But it has been dogged by controversy ever since it was unveiled in 2008.

According to The Telegraph, Santiago Calatrava has been fined €78,000, or roughly $86,000, by the city of Venice due to "negligence" involved in the design of the troubled 300-foot-long Ponte della Constituzione bridge in the city.

According to the report, an Italian judge has ruled that the bridge's structural steel tubes are undersized relative to what is required to span the Grand Canal. Also, the structure's glass steps, supposedly designed to last 20 years, have had a much shorter lifespan, and have required replacement in the decade that has elapsed since the bridge first opened.

View of the underside of Calatrava's "lobster" bridge. Image courtesy of Flickr use C-Monster.

The bridge has been derided by locals, who have likened the crossing's appearance to that of "a lobster," according to The Telegraph. That's not all, however. Initially faulted for the failing to provide accessible means for crossing the stepped bridge by people with disabilities, the design was amended to...

China's newest glass bridge breaks records

2019-08-01T16:21:00-04:00

We want to create a resort where tourists can be entertained and enjoy sports and leisure as well as health care, by integrating innovatively the elements of leisure, recreation, stimulation, amusement and health care," said Pan Zhaofu, director of the Huangguoshu Scenic Area

According to CNN Travel, China's Guizhou Province will be home to a new walkway made of glass. Measured at 1,804 feet, the new bridge is considered to be the longest glass bridge in the world, breaking the record of another famous bridge, which is also located in China.

Set to open sometime in August, the new bridge will allow visitors to walk and enjoy the views the of the Huangguoshu Scenic area.

Construction for the bridge began in March and is said to have cost an estimated $1 million to build.

Motorway bridge collapses over houses and buildings in Italy, leaving 20 dead

2018-08-14T16:29:00-04:00

A motorway bridge, running above houses, streets and railroad tracks in the center of Genoa, Italy, collapsed this morning dropping dozens of vehicles and leaving at least 35 dead and many more injured. Operations remain underway to clear the rubble as at least 30 vehicles sit trapped. Rescuers warn that the death toll may continue to rise as they pick through the debris.

"The collapse of Ponte Morandi is an immense tragedy for our city," said Genoa Mayor Marco Bucci, who told CCN that the collapse "was not absolutely unexpected." Deputy transport minister Edoardo Rixi also confirmed that the bridge had shown "signs of problems" in the past.

Constructed in the 1960s, when many of the country's viaducts, galleries and other infrastructure projects were built, the Ponte Morandi bridge was beginning to show its age. A cable-stayed bridge, the design featured two pretensioned concrete cables used on both sides of the pillar. Subject to corrosion, it may have made the bridge, which re...

MVRDV's Dawn Bridge in Shanghai will be a footbridge, boulevard and viewpoint all in one

2018-02-08T20:10:00-05:00

Dutch-studio MVRDV has won the competition to develop the Dawn Bridge, a multi-use pathway in the ancient water town of Zhujiajiao, China. Located on the outskirts of Shanghai, the ancient district was established over 1,700 years ago and is peppered with historical rice shops, banks, spice stores etc.

The 80-meter bridge is located between new residential buildings and will help mark a new era of development to the area. Yet, given its unique, setting, the firm wanted to establish a strong relation to its surrounding. Beyond a roadway, the bridge doubles as a public space that gives priority to pedestrians by maximizing the space made available to them. Topped with trees and featuring trendy, amphitheater-style seating, the public space provides an overlook from which to take in the historical, river views.

Further, "the bridge establishes a relation with the delicate surrounding by absorbing its palette of colors and materials. The grey roofs are recalled by ...

Plans for DC's Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge upgrade are revealed

2017-08-17T14:18:00-04:00

The Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge sits across the Anacostia River in Washington, D.C. Named after the prominent American abolitionist, the bridge was built in 1950 and today, makes crossing the river possible for 77,000 daily commuters.

Over the decades, the bridge has deteriorated faster than maintenance can keep up with, as is quite common among America's aging infrastructure. Despite a $27 million renovation in 2007, large corrosion holes in the structural beams necessitated its complete replacement and in 2012, city officials announced plans to replace and realign the bridge.

After initial bridge designs were rejected by the National Capitol Planning Commission and the United States Commission of Fine Arts for being "uninspired," DDOT has now revealed a much bolder look for the suspension bridge.

Mayor Muriel E. Bowser on Thursday unveiled the design of the new Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge. (DDOT)

Consisting of three sets of parallel white arches, the 1,600 foot lo...

With a span of 494 meters, the Charles Kuonen Suspension Bridge is officially world's longest

2017-08-01T17:51:00-04:00

Constructed by Swissrope/Lauber Seilbahnen AG, Frutigen, this suspension bridge in Switzerland is now the globe's longest (and arguably, most scenic, as it hovers above one of the deepest valleys in the country). The two-foot-wide bridge, which helps connect two mountain towns, has cut the time it takes to traverse the valley down from 3 to 4 hours to 10 minutes. The downside is the incredible elevation: the tourism board, which issued a press release announcing the bridge's opening, warned tourists with a fear of heights to keep taking the long way.

This proposed luxury hotel by Fender Katsalidis Architects incorporates a suspension bridge

2017-07-06T20:44:00-04:00

It will be built from the top down on a suspension bridge, modelled after and painted the colour of the Golden Gate bridge. At its base will be a new 1,075-seat theatre, and below that an excavation site that’s 4.5 times as large as the museum’s excavation. It is expected to cost over $300m.

In a noteworthy meeting of infrastructure and luxury real estate development, Tasmanian organizer of Hobart's Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) David Walsh believes the people who enjoy the museum will definitely dig an onsite luxury hotel that uses a suspension bridge to support its seven upper storeys. The design has been proposed by Australia's Fender Katsalidis Architects.

A proposed three-story library. Image: Mona

In this article he notes that "you can’t usually build a theatre inside a building because when it shakes, the whole building shakes. But because this is a bridge, the top seven floors are suspended from above, and the bottom three floors are built from below. They’re not connected to each other – there’s no [noise] transmission. It’s the best idea anyone ever had. And it wasn’t mine!”

A proposed installation. Image: Mona

Golden Gate Bridge needs additional $124M to build suicide barrier

2016-10-04T14:09:00-04:00

Roughly 25 people each year jump to their deaths from San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, which prompted city leaders to authorize a plan to erect a kind of suicide-prevention stainless steel cable netting twenty feet below the bridge's deck. The netting, which is painted gray to blend in with the water below, has worked wonders on other suicide-prone perches, including the Prince Edward Viaduct. As Global Construction Review reports, the problem for the Golden Gate is that the bids for the construction have come in about $100 million more than the city anticipated (plus a +/- $20 million contingency fund). The project is on hold until January 9th to allow the city to hustle up the additional funding.

Other notable San Francisco design news:

America has an infrastructure problem – and it's getting critical

2016-02-10T19:54:00-05:00

It would be helpful if there were another word for “infrastructure”: it’s such an earnest and passive word for the blood vessels of this country, the crucial conveyors and connections that get us from here to there (or not) and the ports that facilitate our trade (or don’t), as well as the carriers of information, in particular broadband... The word “crisis” is also overused, applied to the unimportant as well as the crucial. But this country has an infrastructure crisis.

Elizabeth Drew considers several recent books on American infrastructure, with an eye to both the material reality and the political system producing it. She concludes that fixing our infrastructural systems "may require even more widespread paralyzed traffic, the collapse of numerous bridges, and perhaps a revolt in parts of the country that have inadequate broadband."

"In other words, we may well need to incur more chaos and ruin and even deaths before we come to our senses," she writes.

Unfortunately, in the US, while infrastructure is falling apart everywhere, certain contingencies bear the brunt of this more heavily. The ongoing crisis in Flint, Michigan brings into sharp focus the socioeconomic and racial undercurrents of infrastructural collapse.

Interested in related issues? Check out these links:

Flying Robots Monitoring Failing Infrastructure

2014-08-15T19:19:00-04:00

As a report from the Obama administration warns that one in four bridges in the United States needs significant repair or cannot handle automobile traffic, engineers are employing wireless sensors and flying robots that could have the potential to help authorities monitor the condition of bridges in real time.