How Do You Feel About Portland’s Many Bridges?
As it always, unfortunately, does, it seems that the bridge collapse in Minnesota last weekend has shifted the ever-roving eye of the media on the state of other bridges around the country, including Oregon. MSNBC has a handy-dandy state-by-state guide to the level of disrepair of water-spanning roadways, and looking at the Multnomah area specifically, it’s a bit off-putting to see the number of spans that are rated either “structurally deficient” or “functionally obsolete” — though the same page also indicates that a score of 100 equals an “entirely sufficient” bridge and many of the bridges on the chart are in the 80s or 90s, which I guess means they’re fairly safe.
I haven’t really been watching the local news, but I’m guessing they’ve been chattering away for days about whether or not Portland bridges are safe to travel over — and just a guess, but I’ll wager Fox 12 has had more “unsafe bridges” stories than the other channels. Either way, I know in my travels this weekend, I was much more aware of crossing over even small bodies of water, though it didn’t really stop me from driving on.
For the most part I feel fairly confident about Portland’s bridges, with two exceptions:
Burnside Bridge. It’s rustic and adorable, but I wonder how much age has damaged it.
Sellwood Bridge: Of course, if you feel secure about the Sellwood, you haven’t been paying attention.
Our bridges help to define us and are a part of our local identity. I have the utmost confidence in our bridges with the exception of the Sellwood Bridge which has some very obvious issues.
Barring a major natural disaster or direct act of sabotage, I do not feel that any of our local bridges are in danger of collapse.
I always worry about getting pancaked on the Freemont…like in the San Fran earthquake. You know, with Portland being on the verge of a major quake (They say). Mini panic attacks every time I have to cross it, which fortunately isn’t often.
I always worry about getting pancaked on the Freemont…like in the San Fran earthquake. You know, with Portland being on the verge of a major quake (They say). Mini panic attacks every time I have to cross it, which fortunately isn’t often.
(sorry about the double comment, the first one timed out…)
the bay bridge collapse was on the oakland side of treasure island. the design on that side is more like the marquam bridge then the freemont.
Your chances of dying because you were on a driving over a falling bridge are about 1/10,000th the chances of dying from an ordinary car accident. So fearing a bridge collapse is quite irrational — far better to fear driving through an intersection.
i’ll take irrational fear any day over the rational kind…