35w Bridge Collapse

During coverage of the final presidential primary contests Tuesday night, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews took a few digs at the Republicans and their upcoming convention in St. Paul.

MATTHEWS, TO CLINTON CAMPAIGN ADVISER LISA CAPUTO: Well, we’re having a little bit of fun here tonight with the opportunity of Republican conventioneers to arrive at the airport out [...]

“The bridge in Minneapolis didn’t collapse because there wasn’t enough money. The bridge in Minneapolis collapsed because so much money was spent on wasteful, unnecessary pork-barrel projects…. I think there is a long, long list of earmarks which went to unnecessary and unwanted projects that I think should have gone to the bridge in Minnesota. [...]

In this week’s audiocast, David Schultz looks at the SurveyUSA poll from earlier this week indicating that Democratic US Senate candidate Al Franken faces a serious gender gap in his bid to unseat Sen. Norm Coleman. The Monitor’s Joe Bodell wrote that the SurveyUSA snapshot “has ‘outlier’ written all over it,” but Schultz thinks that [...]

This has not been a good month for Minnesota.

Two weeks ago, the I-35W Mississippi River Bridge collapsed, killing 13 and injuring dozens.  And this past weekend, at least six died in flooding in southeastern Minnesota.

The worst part? There are still 11 days left to go.

The twin calamities this month couldn’t be more different.  The 35W [...]

Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau, who serves as commissioner of transportation, and Met Council Chair Peter Bell have recommended that “no further study” be done on adding a possible light rail extension to the new 35W bridge, a decision that’s drawing fire from pro-transit activists.

A statement issued by Laura Baenen, communications director for Central Corridor LRT, [...]

So why did the bridge collapse?  Some say it was due to structural deficiencies, or a lack of proper maintenance, or trucks parked on the bridge deck.  Or, just possibly, it was due to a test of an ultra-low-frequency weapon at Augsburg College.

That’s the theory of Sorcha Faal, a conspiracy theorist that even the conspiracy [...]

The New York Times is reporting that trucks containing tens of thousands of pounds of crushed stone were parked on the 35W Mississippi River Bridge on Wednesday, possibly contributing to the collapse of the bridge.
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A deputy commissioner of transportation is saying that the 35W repair may force the state to delay other projects, [...]

Those people have their hands out again. 

You’d think by now they’d learn to plan ahead.  But no, they’re just taking, taking, taking, expecting the American taxpayer to bail them out, to pay for their mistakes, to reward them for their lackadaisical attitudes.

I looked around for local reaction.  It’s strange that the Taxpayer’s League hasn’t started [...]

The northern end of the 35W Mississippi River Bridge is now considered to be the most likely area of the bridge to have failed, according to a report from Minnesota Public Radio. 

“We don’t believe the southern portion of the bridge is where the accident began,” said National Transportation Safety Board Chair Mark Rosenker, MPR reported.
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The U.S. Senate passed a bill Friday night authorizing emergency funding to help deal with the Interstate 35W bridge disaster, just hours after the U.S. House of Representatives took similar action.

The measure will authorize $250 million in federal funds to help Minnesota recover and rebuild after the collapse of the bridge over the Mississippi River.

The [...]