Contractor not to blame for bridge crashes, says minister

What a complete load of crap. The minister must like talking out her ass.

If what she says was true why didn't they have any of those same problems with the other bridges? I guess the only bridge that people in the lower mainland speed on is the new Port Mann.

"B.C.'s Transportation Minister says the icy mayhem on the Port Mann Bridge on Thursday morning was not due to negligence or a design flaw, but because drivers failed to slow down and adjust to the conditions."

If you crash your vehicle because you couldn't stop in time due to road conditions, then you are driving too fast.

All of the drivers should be charged with wreckless driving.

If you want to get mean over it, ask how many of the 40 vehicles had winter tires on.

Also for clearification the contractor in question is the maintance contractor not the construction contractor. That might not be clear if you didn't read past the title.

I don't know, inclining the suspension cables over the bridge with no design feature in place to prevent ice build-up looks like a design problem to me. There is no reasonable way someone can avoid slush bombs falling from above at high velocity. They can travel at speeds to avoid exacerbating the damage by piling into vehicles hit by slush bombs.

They are going to end up having to heat the cables and possibly the bridge deck. The Minister is in denial, or trying to push the issue off the table until after the next election.

This is different Zip. There were no ice bombs falling this past time. It was just icy.

I think it might be the bridge deck. The few times I've driven over it, it's felt a bit slippery. Not to mention the new stretches of highway on either side of the new bridge. I've noticed there's very little drainage of rainwater on the inside lanes and it doesn't take too much rain for water to start pooling into the inside lane.

If Mainroad is not to blame, why have they now shifted to brining the bridge every 24 instead of 48 hours? Because 24 wasn't good enough. If they do 48 hrs on all the other bridges, then there's something about the bridge, or the microclimate it's in, that causes it to need more brining. Or, Mainroad was just trying to save money, caused a lot of accidents and got caught out. Of course no consequences for Mainroad, the drivers and ICBC will have to bear the burden. ICBC is a crown corp, so all BC taxpayers will bear the burden instead of placing the onus on the private company. Nothing we haven't seen before. Privatize profits, socialize losses.

Well - there has been a bridge there for many many decades now and the very same drivers who were involved in this crash have been driving over that bridge, most of them every day.

We never had these kinds of crashes in the past, not to this extent.

That tells me that SOMETHING is different, and it's not just a case of people going to fast or having the wrong tires. You don't get 40 car pileups involving BOTH directions at about the same time 'just because'.

Ah, thus the benefit of, perhaps, reading the article prior to opening my big mouth. ha ha ha

Good point. The old Port Mann as in the same place, serviced by the same contractor, so maybe it is something in the design of the bridge.

But, it turns out that the Alex Fraser also had "snowbombs" that morning. It wasn't reported until later, and then not nearly as prominently. We do get crashes on bridges because of slippery conditions as well. I wonder if what's playing out here is the media hyping it up because the bridge is new and controversial. Heck, even because the media have gone off the Liberals and will look for anything to stick it to them. (And I will definitely be voting NDP next election.).

Well, my initial reaction is to feel that way. SOMETHING seems different. Mind you - that's in no way shape or form proof, just a sense that 'it wasn't like this before'.




Well you're right of course - it just seems like an issue of severity. All bridges get icy. All bridges have snow buildup on the infrastructure. And there have always been crashes.

But not all bridges damage 250 cars with falling snow sending people to the hospital, and a 40 car 2-direction pileup on a bridge that's right where another bridge was for decades seems a lot more severe than the usual 4 or 5 car incidents we've seen in the past.

And the darn thing has only been open for just over a month.

I'm no engineer, nor did I stay at a holiday inn last night, so i'm not prepared to render judgement. What you suggest may well be true.

But it FEELS like something is very different with this bridge in the severity of the problems if not the nature of them.

I guess we'll see.

As to christie clark - I think on both sides of the political spectrum everyone realizes she's got to go, bridge or no bridge

No, you would be wrong.

No, you would be wrong.

I'm sorry - i should have said "everyone who's reasonable and sane..."

And the polls would indicate i'm a lot more right than wrong. She's a disaster. The ndp is a disaster as well, but it will force the right of center parties to get their acts together and drop the deadwood.

It's just something we seem to have to go thru every once in a while in bc. We should have done it last election. Now we're going to have to live with Dix for 4 years.

People in the Lower Mainland are terrible winter drivers. People drive too fast, don't have the proper equipment, or a lot of skill. So they crash.

As for the old bridge not getting 40 car piles ups, that's because you could only cross the bridge at a walking speed before*. New bridge with a higher speed due to better traffic flow means more and larger crashs.

*Not a factual statement.

Lastly Foxer, do you have any stats on the size or number of crashes for the old bridge? Or are you just making an assumption?

I live out here and watched this 3 times on the local news so don't lecture me on what I know and don't know.

The contractor who's responsible for salting and sanding the bridge fucked up by not putting enough product down to keep the road surface from freezing and the minister of transportation is still as fucking thick as two short planks despite your attempt to make her otherwise.

Have a read of this since it may clarify it for you.



http://www.timescolonist.com/news/b-c/4 ... ge-1.39445

Yeah, they mentioned them this morning on the news when they were talking about it. I can't remember the precise numbers now (i used to be young and stupid, now i'm old and forgetful. I think. ) But it was the worst by far. I think the previous worst was something like 20 or so in a day (didn't really clarify if that was one event or many). Don't quote me on the precise number tho. I'm not even sure where they got them, icbc i suppose.

However - i've lived here most of my life and just like it did now if anything near that major happened it would have been in the news. I remember tonnes of 2 or 3 car incidents that closed the old bridge, but nothing close to this and I don't remember it happening in both directions at once at the same time ever.