UDOT: Dozens of Utah bridges built with same method as collapsed Florida bridge
Mar 15, 2018, 9:58 PM | Updated: 10:55 pm
WEST JORDAN — Although dozens of bridges built in Utah were built using the same process involved in the construction of a pedestrian bridge that collapsed in Florida Thursday, officials are confident with the safety of the method.
Crews have utilized Accelerated Bridge Construction methods—which typically involve constructing bridges or large sections of the structures away from designated roads—to install over 200 bridges over the past 15 years, according to UDOT chief structural engineer Carmen Swanwick.
“We were listening to the public where they didn’t want to be impacted by traffic congestion during bridge construction, so the program just developed from that need,” Swanwick said.
Swanwick stood by the safety of the ABC methods.
“It is not less safe to build a bridge that way,” Swanwick said. “We take every precaution possible to make sure that this type of incident doesn’t happen.”
Among those precautions, Swanwick said, are stringent requirements, review processes and inspections conducted once every two years on all bridges in the state.
Investigators were in the initial stages late Thursday of determining what went wrong with the Florida structure , which had been put into place just five days earlier near Florida International University.
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Police said the collapse killed at least four people.
Ironically, FIU has been home to a program centered around Accelerated Bridge Construction. Swanwick was listed online as a member of an advisory committee there.
She declined to speculate on the collapse and its potential causes.
“It’s so tragic,” Swanwick said. “I feel terrible for the people involved in this incident.”
Last year, UDOT posted time lapse video of a project utilizing ABC methods to construct a pedestrian bridge at 7000 S. Bangerter Highway.
While some neighbors didn’t seem particularly enthralled Thursday with the size and look of that bridge, at least one said he was confident in the safety of the processes behind it.
“They’re really great guys and they did a really, really good job—I don’t expect that one’s going to fall,” Steve Andrews said, referencing the immense bridge next door to his house. “I’d really love for them to tear the dang thing down—that’s what I’d really like.”
Swanwick said residents of the state should expect more projects utilizing Accelerated Bridge Construction methods in the years and decades ahead.
“This is something that works really well for us,” Swanwick said. “I’m confident in the way our program is established and I would not hesitate to use it again in the future.”
