US pedestrian bridge collapse

[WHBM]

There is apparently a substantial pedestrian movement between the high-rise student housing, on the north, and the university campus, on the south side. There is already an additional pedestrian bridge over the adjacent waterway and a large "holding pen" for those waiting to cross squeezed in. There are also 9 traffic lanes to get across of a 45mph limit road (with signals !); I'm sure it would fail a meaningful risk assessment for a surface crossing in Britain

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@25.76132 ... 312!8i6656

[2 Sheds]

According to AvE on YouTube it looks like failure of tensioning cables, possibly caused by them lifting the bridge in a non-prescribed way.

Links (NB, strong language and very candid discussion)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioC61QW7SHQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtiTm2dKLgU

You might find more considered and circumspect views in this article.
https://www.newcivilengineer.com/world- ... ntentID=-1

I might send a thesaurus to the youtube contributor who posted the above 2 videos. He seems a bit short of verbs and nouns.

[KeithW]

Am I the only one, who wonders why a bridge is being built there at all? It is a surface street after all. And the crossroads next to the bridge contains pedestrian crossings and is controlled by traffic lights. I fail to see the need for a bridge.

I think its perfectly reasonable to build a pedestrian bridge over a 6 lane road, its not exactly rare to do such things in the UK when dealing with a busy 40 mph urban road. Here are 2 examples less than a mile from my house.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.52145 ... authuser=0

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.52218 ... authuser=0

[2 Sheds]

In the interests of safety it's obviously preferable to separate pedestrians and vehicles as far as practicable and affordable. There are also fewer delays for traffic if there are fewer signals to get held up at. I was very frustrated in one UK local authority where I worked, where we actually filled in a structurally sound pedestrian subway and put in a Pelican crossing instead. The argument was that people felt too intimidated to use the subway at night (even though it was straight and you could see from 1 end to the other). I argued that we should make the subway safer and more attractive so it would get used more. I lost.

[WHBM]

I was very frustrated in one UK local authority where I worked, where we actually filled in a structurally sound pedestrian subway and put in a Pelican crossing instead. The argument was that people felt too intimidated to use the subway at night (even though it was straight and you could see from 1 end to the other). I argued that we should make the subway safer and more attractive so it would get used more. I lost.

Currently fashionable in London as well.

It would be interesting to compare national KSI figures for Pelicans compared to those in pedestrian underpasses.

[KeithW]

In the interests of safety it's obviously preferable to separate pedestrians and vehicles as far as practicable and affordable. There are also fewer delays for traffic if there are fewer signals to get held up at. I was very frustrated in one UK local authority where I worked, where we actually filled in a structurally sound pedestrian subway and put in a Pelican crossing instead. The argument was that people felt too intimidated to use the subway at night (even though it was straight and you could see from 1 end to the other). I argued that we should make the subway safer and more attractive so it would get used more. I lost.

The problem is what happens when someone looks down the average underpass like this one on the Newmarket Road in Cambridge all they see is a dark hole surrounded by graffiti and so just cross the road instead. I certainly never used it. A survey showed that the public perception was that it was unsafe to use especially at night.

https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/c ... s-14128981

Well lit underpasses work reasonably well in city centres especially within the CCTV zone but out in the burbs its a different story. The sordid reality is that most become unofficial public toilets.

[mikehindsonevans]

In the interests of safety it's obviously preferable to separate pedestrians and vehicles as far as practicable and affordable. There are also fewer delays for traffic if there are fewer signals to get held up at. I was very frustrated in one UK local authority where I worked, where we actually filled in a structurally sound pedestrian subway and put in a Pelican crossing instead. The argument was that people felt too intimidated to use the subway at night (even though it was straight and you could see from 1 end to the other). I argued that we should make the subway safer and more attractive so it would get used more. I lost.

The problem is what happens when someone looks down the average underpass like this one on the Newmarket Road in Cambridge all they see is a dark hole surrounded by graffiti and so just cross the road instead. I certainly never used it. A survey showed that the public perception was that it was unsafe to use especially at night.

https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/c ... s-14128981

Well lit underpasses work reasonably well in city centres especially within the CCTV zone but out in the burbs its a different story. The sordid reality is that most become unofficial public toilets.

And in (original) Winchester in (original) Hampshire in (original) England, at the bottom of Station Hill, the 1970s underpass beneath Sussex Street was supplemented by a street-level set of pedestrian lights about ten years back. The mosaic tiles inside the underpass reflect land-use mapping in the nearby River Itchen valley.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.06693 ... 6656?hl=en