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100th Street Bridge Smacking


arcturus

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Ok transportation experts, why does this seem to be something relatively recent?  Has there been a change to the laws?  Who's at fault?  Is it too low or are trucks too high? 

Post is prompted by the dude who photo chopped bubble wrap over it - http://www.woodtv.com/news/kent-county/100th-street-bridge-gag-gets-big-response/1106661454

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This happens a lot more than one would think. Look at the underside of other bridges.  Lots of impact marks. Most are not as severe as what has happened at 100th St. It is a little lower than most but still any legal height load should be good to fit under.

The first hits  were 2 guys hauling shipping containers on regular flat bed trailers. There is a reason that there are hundreds of thousands of container chassis out there. The containers are too high on a regular trailer. They almost  made it .One guy hit the south fascia beam the second hit the north fascia beam. The air ride suspensions raised up enough to snag the bridge. I remember a guy SB that didn't get off at 28th St on his way to MC Sporting Goods warehouse. The container hit the overpass, split open and spread Nike's all over the highway.

The next "hit" was the plastic covering the top of a modular home. Not a true hit. The next one was some guy that had a piece of equipment that didn't measure his load .That happens more often but the news media typically doesn't report it unless it's a real traffic issue.  Right now "100th St" is a hot new item. The guy that peeled off the top of his pallets again didn't measure his load , probably didn't even think about it.

Used to be we could tell when Christmas trees started moving south by the trees along the road at the lower height overpasses on the freeway.  I'm not on the road like I used to be so I can't tell you if it still happens.

One thing thy could do quickly is mill off the 4-5 inches of asphalt on 131 under the bridge. A second thing is make their truck permit sysytem easier to use. I know from personal experience it takes a long time to to get thru the application on line. I'm guessing a lot don't bother to get an over height permit - any permit for that matter . An accurate measurement entered in would get those bridges flagged.

Know your load / trailer height, read the signs and you won't hit anything. Over height , get a permit and MDOT will flag the problem ones. No excuse for anyone hitting them.

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