No. No, we cannot.
Here’s the million-dollar question nobody is asking about the Baltimore bridge collapse…
The recent bridge collapse in Baltimore is an absolute nightmare, and our thoughts are with the victims and their families during this incredibly tough time. Beyond the heart-wrenching loss and the basic “whys” everyone’s dealing with, there’s one crucial question not many are asking: Can America rebuild the bridge?
Oh, America could have, probably. Amerika v2.0, though? Not a hope in Hell.
Sure, it might seem odd to wonder about our capability to build a bridge in 2024, but sadly, it’s a valid concern these days. When you consider how our nation is faltering under inept globalist rule, dragged down by dangerous DEI agendas that place “charity” over excellence, and watching the decimation of hardworking middle-class America, the question isn’t just rhetorical—it’s a stark reflection of our abysmal current reality.
Revolver has been calling attention to this decline in American society for quite some time, starting from when Biden first introduced his “infrastructure bill.” Fast forward three years, and here we are: bridges collapsing, roads deteriorating, and let’s not even dive into the chaos unfolding in our skies or the sorry state of our airports. Meanwhile, as China makes serious strides forward, it feels like we’re just spinning our wheels, stuck in neutral. It’s a stark contrast that highlights where our priorities have been misplaced and the need for a serious reevaluation of how we invest in our nation’s future.
The scary part is this: as we’re facing our own decline, other nations are advancing. The recent Baltimore bridge disaster could have been an attack, a result of DEI-related incompetence, or something else entirely. What’s clear, though, is that America is showing signs of wear and tear, and our focus shouldn’t be misplaced on absurd “pet projects” like electric cars or gender transitioning. It’s time to return to the fundamentals: roads, bridges, and airports, and see if we can spark that long-forgotten American “can do” spirit again. God knows we need it badly.
PRO TIP: We won’t. In fact, even if over half the country wasn’t vehemently, violently opposed to the whole “can-do spirit” concept, we still couldn’t. It isn’t a matter of “sparking” anything, but of recovering the skeletal remains from their long-since abandoned, musty crypt and bringing them back to life again. All the advanced tech, government financial largesse, and PC die-versity in the known universe can’t turn the trick.
Back in the mid-90s, when my friend Pfouts and I would go out for our regular Saturday strolls around lower Manhattan, he would sometimes shake his head ruefully and say, “Y’know, if New York had to build the subway system today, it couldn’t do it.” I never questioned him on that; all one had to do was take a quick glance at everything around him and see that Chris’s gloomy assessment was in no wise overly pessimistic or cynical, but in fact perfectly accurate.
Again: this was back in the mid-90s, mind. The situation both in NYC and the rest of the “nation” has certainly not improved any since those days.
All Senile Jaux’s angry yelling to the contrary notwithstanding, the EPA “environmental impact” study alone for any such FSK reconstruction project would take five or ten years and hoover up billions of dollars, and that’s before the first girder or I-beam is purchased and put on indefinite back-order while Baltimore waits for it to be shipped from China. Bottom line?
To ask the question is to answer it.
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I’m willing to bet anyone that wishes a thousand bucks the bridge gets rebuilt/replaced.
I’m sorry, but the thinking that we cannot build a damn bridge is just completely false.
https://www.hdrinc.com/portfolio/marc-basnight-bridge-bonner-bridge-replacement
Can’t build bridges in the USA?
What is it I keep driving over going to the island? Bridges. Multiple bridges.
Those bridges you drive over, when were they built? Are they over a mile long? (Might be, depending on which bridges you take.) Do they handle eight or twelve lanes of traffic?
I don’t disagree that the engineering talent exists in the US to rebuild the bridge. I do question whether the special interests and the sticky fingers can be overcome to rebuild the bridge in less than five years. I also question whether the engineering talent will be allowed to design the replacement or whether the engineering talent will be sidelined in order to give “underrepresented groups” the chance to do the design and more importantly get paaaaaaiid. Corollary: If “underrepresented groups” design the bridge and it ever gets built, it’ll collapse within a couple years.
The link provided is to the bridge replacement over Oregon Inlet, completed just a few years ago. It is 2.8 miles in length. It is not subject to large cargo ship ship transit that require a different design. It does have quite long spans, 350 ft or so and they are not quite 100ft above the water.
That is a recent large bridge. there are others, the longest being the Virginia Dare at 5.2 miles in length, completed in 2002. Again, not a cargo transit point.
These are all 4 lane bridges, same as the key bridge, a much shorter bridge under 2 miles in length.
Your link makes my point. Eight years from commissioning the design to the bridge opening, including two years for litigation delays. And that wasn’t in a busy port with city, port, and state governments internationally renowned for corruption.
You’re right about the Key Bridge being (having been) four lanes. I’d been thinking it was four in each direction; mixed it up with one of the others. Still, it was overcrowded and should be rebuilt with more lanes.
The Basnight Bridge replaced an in use bridge so didn’t have a loss of function while under construction. The Key bridge will need to be replaced in a shorter time frame.
Of course, the bridge took many years to be approved because of the marxists parading as environmental whackos. You will not have the same problem building a replacement bridge in a blue run city.
The real decision is what to replace it with? You almost always take the opportunity to turn tragedy into an improvement. As you say, 4 lanes are inadequate for the needs of today.
I’m not suggesting it happens overnight. I’m not only suggesting we can build bridges, but we do it all the damn time.
“I do question whether the special interests and the sticky fingers can be overcome to rebuild the bridge in less than five years.”
In the best of circumstances it would likely take 5 years to complete the bridge unless they simply built a copy. I’m certain they will not do that, so you can figure it is six months to a year just to decide on a design, then a year plus to design it (depends upon what design elements can be reused from other projects).
Construction in a harbor as busy as that one will likely take several years, so 5 out is not off the charts.
What is apparent is the cargo ship should never have been allowed to leave port. It has documented failures.
All these bridges are destroyable by cargo ships. There should probably be tugs escorting them through essential bridges.
It takes several years to build a bridge like this. There is no quick fix.
For backup to you “Can’t build it” types 🙂
https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2024/03/29/it-could-take-how-long-to-rebuild-francis-scott-key-bridge-n4927756
OTOH, Baltimore can do without the bridge. Just get the old one out of the way so the port can function.
Or, just burn it down which would suit me just fine.
2005, similar, South Carolina. Eight lanes, 575 ft high, 2.5 miles long, passes container ships.
a quick thought:
NYC started going downhill with the term of John Vliet Lindsay; but the fatal blow was David Norman Dinkins
Barry, the time that has passed since the completion of the bridges in your examples, has been a time of “accelerated retardation and niggatry”. This is most emphatically NOT the same nation it was even 10 years ago. As has been noted, the closer we get to the event horizon, the faster we go… and we are haulin’ ass toward catastrophic failure.
Do we have the ability, materials, skill, and yes – boldness, daring, and work ethic – to rebuild things like the FSK bridge, as well as our decrepit and failing infrastructure? Sure we do. Do we have the national will to do so? Perhaps. Do we have a the necessary things in place, near Baltimore, to do this? We might, but we probably don’t.
Look at this in light of “where we are, now” – not in light of anything we may have done in the past… for example, years ago our forefathers would have already been shooting… today? Folks are “binge watching t.v.” whatever the fuck that’s about.
OG, those are examples close by me, ones I have used. They are not the only bridges built in recent times. There are bridges currently under construction and in the planning stages.
Bridges are time intensive. From planning to construction they are long term capital projects. There are bridges being built now, bridges being planned now. It takes years to put together a plan for a large structure and years to build it.
The question in Mike’s headline is:
“Key Bridge: can we rebuild it?”
The answer given is: “No. No, we cannot.”
I will state emphatically, 100%, this is the wrong answer.
If you wish to discuss the needless BS that goes into the building of a capital project, the absurd corruption and graft that occurs, the waste of tax payer dollars, etc, ad infinitum, then I’m all in on that.
It is however, quite clear that we can and do build bridges in even the most corrupt places in this country.
This bridge will get replaced. The only real question is how long will it take, what will it cost, and how corrupt is the process going to be?
I think the restraining effect of the regulatory bureaucracy would be the deciding factor. When the FSK bridge was built in the early 70s, the regulatory environment wasn’t nearly as daunting as it is today. Unless the federal government were to squash the alphabet agencies’ demands completely, they could tie up the project indefinitely — and such is those agencies’ jealousy of their power and status that, absent their total dissolution by Congress, they would surely strive to do so.
The envirotards’ lawsuits need to be stopped, too. And those of the “spokesmen for the disadvantaged community” who will, you just know it, find that the construction efforts will have a disparate impact on poor, minority communities.