Restored Bridge of Lions Has Dozens of Malfunctions

[Timkin]

The modern bridge spans that replaced the Acosta and the Fuller Warren  are ...bridges alright... just not very attractive.

The drawbridge span WAS supposed to be spared  (and placed in another area) that never came to pass.

[ChriswUfGator]

Oh come on guys it wouldn't have cost $82mm to repour a roadbed and stabilize some cracks in concrete.

That project would have given us a nice new deck sitting on the bottom of the river.

The bridge structure was deficient.

It was all fixable. Some rust and concrete cracks, big deal.

I'm guessing you're a transplant from somewhere else. I was born and raised in this area, and since at least the 1970s DOT has been claiming the bridge was about to fall in on itself unless we spent mega-money on a new one. Guess what, it never did. The City of Saint Augustine fought it for years, hiring independent engineers saying the DOT reports were basically bogus. Around 1999 there was hoopla over a bunch of conflicts of interest. This was nothing more than a money grab. And the allegedly improved replacement bridge has wound up being a disaster, hasn't worked properly since day 1.

[tufsu1]

look there are bridge inspections done every few years...a low score means it is structurally deficient, not that it is ready to fall down any day

Of course, the I-35 bridge in Minnesota was also "deficient"...do you want to take that chance when crossing water?

[wsansewjs]

look there are bridge inspections done every few years...a low score means it is structurally deficient, not that it is ready to fall down any day

Of course, the I-35 bridge in Minnesota was also "deficient"...do you want to take that chance when crossing water?

^_^ Just a friendly visual reminder...

http://www.youtube.com/v/osocGiofdvc?fs=1&hl=en_US

[Dashing Dan]

There was a decision about replacing the bridge, and then there was a decision about the design of the replacement bridge. 

I wasn't around for the first decision, but I'm very happy with the second decision.

[ChriswUfGator]

look there are bridge inspections done every few years...a low score means it is structurally deficient, not that it is ready to fall down any day

Of course, the I-35 bridge in Minnesota was also "deficient"...do you want to take that chance when crossing water?

You guys are missing what I'm saying. The bridge had 30 years' worth of deferred maintenance piled up because the DOT wanted from the beginning to replace it when there was no demonstrable need. The initial fight is they wanted 4 lanes which the original bridge wasn't wide enough to support, and the City smacked that down. Next they claimed they had to put in a highrise bridge, that got smacked down by public outrage. None of the residents actually wanted a new bridge, DOT basically tried for 3 decades to ram it down the City's throats. DOT lost a battle in the 90s when the City got it added as a historic landmark which foiled whatever asinine design they were pushing then. The strategy ultimately became demolition by neglect, the state stopped doing all but the most basic maintenance on it to keep the top deck visually looking OK. But I regularly went underneath in my boat, and the rest of the bridge was being allowed to fall apart. Then they used the self-created maintenance issues as justification to finally get what they'd been going for since the 1980s, despite the problems being fixable. Long history behind this one. But there was nothing unfixable about that bridge, and for a lot less than $82mm.

As a side note this is about the third time this weekend some transplant who moved down here recently has taken it upon themselves to school me on the past 30 years' worth of history that I was here for and lived through. It's getting kind of funny, must be the moon phase or something. This is about the one thing I ever see really annoy Stephen. Now I get why it bugs him. A classic moment was a bunch of people who had just moved in sandbagging him at a meeting telling him how he didn't know what he was talking about, and didn't understand the intent behind a particular zoning overlay. These idiots naturally didn't realize that he actually wrote that overlay 10 years before. This weekend I was drawn into an argument with a guy from Tampa about the A1A rec center in Daytona that's part of sun acres. What would I know, my family built the subdivision.

[ChriswUfGator]

Surface corrosion, non-destabilizing concrete cracks, and the need to replace vestigal wood pilings with concrete;

http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00095512/00001

Big deal. A total renovation of the existing bridge would have cost $46mm vs. this $82mm piece of crap we have now.

Thing breaks twice a week it's ridiculous.

[Timkin]

I have no idea , one way or the other on the Bridge of Lions. but I will concur with Chris that at the price tag of the replicated, current span, we certainly should have a perfectly working bridge ,at the very least.

It is funny that in a town the size of St.Augustine, public outcry actually accomplishes something and that they hang on to their landmarks, or at least replicate as best as possible when they do replace.

I wish more of the same were the case in Jacksonville.

[Dashing Dan]

Surface corrosion, non-destabilizing concrete cracks, and the need to replace vestigal wood pilings with concrete;

http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00095512/00001

Big deal. A total renovation of the existing bridge would have cost $46mm vs. this $82mm piece of crap we have now.

Thing breaks twice a week it's ridiculous.

Chris - Thank you for posting that link. Thanks also for holding the fort here, while people like me were hanging around elsewhere.

I'll concede that maybe the old bridge could have been patched up, and that the decision to replace the old bridge may have been motivated by a misguided inclination to build a wide high level bridge in its place.

I'll also agree that $82m was a lot of money for the replacement bridge.  For that amount, the new bridge ought to be way more reliable than it has proven to be so far.

But I'm still really glad that St. Augustine was successful in this fight.  A high level bridge at that location would have been a disaster.

[tufsu1]

Big deal. A total renovation of the existing bridge would have cost $46mm vs. this $82mm piece of crap we have now.

well at least now you're willing to admit that fixing the old bridge would be more than "a few" million.

so, basically, your issue here is the reliabaility of the new bridge and the additional $36 million...with those, I cannot disagree.

[Dashing Dan]

Bottom line: the new bridge looks like the old one.  We need more bottom lines like that.

[Jason]

I live less than 5 minutes from the bridge and travel it somewhat frequently.  As one that spends quite a bit of my leisure in Downtown St. Augustine I agree with the decision to rebuild/refurbish the bridge.  Sure, things were a bit ugly during construction and there have been some mechanical issues along the way (although none that I have experienced lately), but I must say the "new" bridge is very attractive, fits the historic charm, and functions a bit more effeciently than it did before.  The new approaches are better organized and structured allowing traffic to flow more smoothly.  The crosswalks actually work, the pedestrian walkways across the bridge are wider, and the new bulkheads were sorely needed.  The refurbished lions are an extremely popular photo op as well.

This bridge is a defining part of St. Augustine and will now last for many more years to come.  Maybe it didn't need to be rebuilt just yet but with the stir of a 450th anniversary celebration coming up and the potential to showcase the city to a worldwide audience, I think the decision to rebuild/refurbish the bridge was a sound one.

[ChriswUfGator]

Yeah, Dashing Dan, not only is $82mm a lot of money but $36mm of that figure was just an absolute out-and-out waste, when a total renovation of the existing bridge was actually $36mm cheaper than tearing it down and replacing it with what, much to DOT's chagrin, wound up being another drawbridge that's basisically a replica of the one they just tore down. We're not talking a patch job either, that much lower figure would have covered a full renovation, including the replacement of all worn structural components, and still saved $36mm.

And yeah that's exactly what DOT's motivation was, they've been on a campaign for quite awhile to eliminate drawbridges and replace them with hi-rise bridges. Fort Lauderdale has been at war with them for 20 years, since much of their economy is marine-related and DOT's silly plans for a bunch of fixed spans would have closed off the biggest boat show to any large sailboats and a lot of good sized yachts. A genius plan by DOT if ever there was one. They wound up replacing the bridge in question with a new drawbridge. Although at least that one cost the same, added two extra lanes, and actually works properly.

Regarding the bridge of lions, it's annoying to watch so much money get pissed away. And I certainly don't deserve any thanks just for being here, if I got to choose where I'd been born I'd be speaking Balinese lol. But I find for whatever reason that some people who got here yesterday want to teach me how things work, which is interesting since Florida, and the south generally, really have their own way of doing things. And Jacksonville-area politics and intrigue are like the short bus of the whole operation. And you can think of FDOT as the helmet-wearing passenger in the back drooling out the window. Look at their decisions in that frame of mind and you will have a much better idea of how to respond to anything the DOT comes up with.

[ChriswUfGator]

Big deal. A total renovation of the existing bridge would have cost $46mm vs. this $82mm piece of crap we have now.

so, basically, your issue here is the reliabaility of the new bridge and the additional $36 million...with those, I cannot disagree.

Yeah Tufsu that's exactly what I've been getting at, I get annoyed when money gets pissed away like that.

[wsansewjs]

And you can think of FDOT as the helmet-wearing passenger in the back drooling out the window.

Hahahaha! I lol'd hard at that one. Oh those poor things!

-Josh