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Looks like the Zakim is all it's cracked up to be
By adamg on Tue, 03/21/2023 - 12:59pm
Mike Greanwhel went 'Yikes' yesterday on a walk under the Zakim Bridge, when he noticed not just cracks in support-beam concrete but exposed rebar.
MassDOT reported this morning that "bridge maintenance and district highway operations are working to address this."
Is that rebar rust weeping out of Zakim cracks?
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Comments
It wasn’t going to last forever.
Most infrastructure has a shelf life of 10-15 years, right?
The plans are in the works.
I'm sure there's a meeting planned for another meeting to discuss a proposal for a study and then another follow-up meeting to discuss the results.
At the very least, be thankful it's not the MBTA in charge of the bridge.
Should we?
What's the difference? DOT seems equally negligent in maintaining its infrastructure, and if anything is held to even less account for it.
Plans are in the works
That's what we heard about the T for, you know, the last 8 years. Work out well.
Of course, if it was the T, they'd make every car go across the Zakim at 10 mph until further notice.
At least during the times of day when the cars aren't already crawling across the bridge at 10 mph.
Don't forget
Establishing a task force to engage community stakeholders to develop a grassroots approach to proposing a study.
Just wait until the rest of the Big Dig starts spaling
Take a look at rust spots along Frontage Road to the Tip O'Neill Tunnel.
What if I told you…
What if I told you that – ever since the Patrick administration – MassDOT has been nominally in charge of the T?
New Governor is in charge now
New Governor is in charge now, ask her to get federal funding to fix the problem.
Don’t worry
Our guy on the transportation and infrastructure committee has the unlimited money cheat code. Oh, wait…
Ranking member
We could have had the ranking member on the House transportation committee, but now we have a Rep who voted *against* the infrastructure law. I’m sure she’ll easily get money to fix things like this…
Lenny Zakim Bridge isn’t
Lenny Zakim Bridge isn’t CRACKED up to be.
It was a joke ...
See the cracks? In the Zakim?
If this was the T
If this was treated the same way as the T the DPU would mandate reducing speeds on every highway in the state until some nebulous objective has been reached.
From the same people who
From the same people who brought you the River Street bridge in Hyde Park.
I had no idea...
...that the people who designed the River Street bridge a hundred plus years ago also designed the Zakim!!
Oh wait.
More broadly, y'all realize that the regulations about how MassDOT has to study the impacts and make a plan and make that plan public, etc., arose for good reasons, right? Yes, it feels like a glacial pace. Yes it can be frustrating. But government agencies moving super fast with even less oversight is not actually better. Pretty sure we're seeing some of the effects of that right now, actually.
Why not try the Roman method...
It seems that our modern concrete construction techniques using rebar that rapidly corrodes especially on bridges that are subjected to road salt don't quite result in projects that have the shelf life of what the Romans were doing back in the day.
https://www.science.org/content/article/why-modern-mortar-crumbles-roman...
Rebar permits tensile and shear loads
whereas Roman construction was all compressive loads. Rebar, for all of its downsides, allows you to build things that the Romans could not have built.
That's not to say there's not still very interesting chemistry to learn from Roman concrete. But it was used for a different job.
I agree about the rust issue
This is the reason why the MBTA garage built in the 1990's in Lynn is already being demolished. They built it. Let it rust and crumble until everyone was like "Oh, sh!t," and now it can't even be saved.
...and this cycle is repeated over and over again. Time to try something different next time a garage, bridge, or whatever has to be constructed for MassDOT or the T.
Are we driving tons of goods in heavy trucks on Roman concrete?
Actually genuinely curious because my assumption would be that the difference is use would also impact the longevity, but it is possible there's some road in Italy or something that's relying on Roman roads as its foundation too.
Roman concrete
My understanding is that the Romans found a concrete formula that actually gets stronger with age. Something about volcanic ash, maybe. Our concrete doesn't get stronger, and because it absorbs water, the steel rebar inevitably deteriorates. And yes, I believe there are roads in Europe built on top of Roman ones.
I have to imagine Roman concrete is porous as well
and if you were to put rebar in it, it could crack and crumble just like ours does when the rebar starts to rust and expand.
It's really the rebar that's the tricky part! But rebar is also the only reason we can even have structures like this in the first place.
Cement concrete tends to
Cement concrete tends to continue curing and getting stronger (even if marginally) over time. Hence the oft-cited bit about how the Hoover Dam is still curing
This is what happens when you defer maintenance to
Our roads and bridges and use that money for public transportation and bike lanes.
Yeah, this must be why our
Yeah, this must be why our public transportation is in such great shape
Obviously
The big dig didn't cost enough. /s
Show us the paper trail
You know that bikes and public transportation also travel on roads and bridges, right?
There are two types of
There are two types of concrete. Concrete with cracks and concrete that has not cracked yet.
Aggregate Industries
Remember the FRAUD they committed with substandard concrete in the Big Dig? Do they have anything to do with this? I am shocked they are still allowed to operate in MA after that.
Not enough anger towards them for some reason
What they and other fraudulent contractors have done to taxpayers over the years should have resulted in protests at the State House. We sit in our armchairs and scroll on our phones just getting mad for a moment and that's it. Then, it happens to us again. I'm pretty much a "tax and spend" guy when it comes to how I vote, but I'm not a "tax and get ripped off" guy..
The "Controls" are not working.
My prediction,Construction
My prediction,Construction crews will shut down bridge or reduce to one lane and place a Band Aid on it that will last another 10 years .
The likeliest solution
... would be to close down pedestrian access under the bridge, so that no one can take photos of the crumbling concrete and exposed rebar.