Akld harbour bridge could fail says official report

[SpankMe]

Yep, the nippon clip-ons could fall off. Thats it, I'm sticking to the center bit from now on.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10469771

[NZsarge]

Yep, the nippon clip-ons could fall off. Thats it, I'm sticking to the center bit from now on.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10469771

Pfft!, screw it! whack up a new one, government got enough in spare change to do that:blink:.

[Swoop]

They want to blame the trucks, but they should look at the fully loaded busses during rush hour (a full bus in Auckland:scratch:). They are quite heavy as well.
Ban all traffic from the clip-ons! BIKES ONLY!

[peasea]

Yep, the nippon clip-ons could fall off. Thats it, I'm sticking to the center bit from now on.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10469771

Add that to the growing list of reasons to leave Auckland...............

[Beemer]

Add that to the growing list of reasons to leave Auckland...............

Or never go there in the first place...........

[merv]

Yep we all remember this http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/showthread.php?t=54733

Why weren't we like the Aussies? When they built their coathanger they built it tough, originally carrying 4 railway tracks too, now down to 2 railway tracks with the rest filled up with road lanes and you never hear them bleating its not strong enough.

In NZ we always do things on a low budget with no allowance for future growth and limit ourselves from the start. The roads are as bad, as all of us that use River Road in Upper Hutt well remember.

[davereid]

The trouble with that bridge is its North of Auckland. So even if it does fall down the Aucklanders can still come this way... :innocent:

[The Pastor]

They want to blame the trucks, but they should look at the fully loaded busses during rush hour (a full bus in Auckland:scratch:). They are quite heavy as well.
Ban all traffic from the clip-ons! BIKES ONLY!
Its not the weight, its the type of loading - the susspension on trucks does the most damage.

also a lot of people walking over it (at once) will do the worse damage.

[Disco Dan]

Well i'll be riding with my arm bands on now....

[jrandom]

In NZ we always do things on a low budget with no allowance for future growth and limit ourselves from the start.

Aye, it's a bit like that.

It all boils down to the initial specification of the clip-ons, really. I wonder what numbnuts decided to under- rather than over-specify them?

I personally can't imagine building a bridge that wasn't designed to handle twice the maximum conceivable load (in this case, a traffic jam consisting of nothing but heavy trucks). Obviously the original engineering team didn't take that approach.

:no:

[Swoop]

I personally can't imagine building a bridge that wasn't designed to handle twice the maximum conceivable load (in this case, a traffic jam consisting of nothing but heavy trucks). Obviously the original engineering team didn't take that approach.
I seem to remember, in the dim and distant past, there was an American involvement in the design of the bridge. The yanks said "Build an eight lane bridge!" but they were ignored and we had a nice, narrow, four-lane bridge.

I do believe the Americans' have built quite a few bridges' and possibly know what they are talking about.

[Scouse]

I seem to remember, in the dim and distant past, there was an American involvement in the design of the bridge. The yanks said "Build an eight lane bridge!" but they were ignored and we had a nice, narrow, four-lane bridge.

I do believe the Americans' have built quite a few bridges' and possibly know what they are talking about.they have also had quite a few bridge failiures including one this year

[jrandom]

I feel pretty safe saying that bridge building, in the general case, is a solved engineering problem.

The only reasons a bridge will fail are incompetence in design, under-specification, or criminal negligence during its construction.

Under-specification appears to be the issue with the Auckland harbour bridge.

[merv]

Add to that poor maintenance - allowing corrosion etc - which is what it sounds like happened in Minneapolis.

Also at the time the Auckland clip-ons were developed welded steel box girders were quite new and the design technology around them not that well developed. The most well known failure was the West Gate bridge in Melbourne which fell during early construction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Gate_Bridge

These days I would hope computer modelling has overcome any risk of this kind of failure but that assumes the designers do it right. That doesn't help Auckland of course, you've still got old stuff.

[jrandom]

Add to that poor maintenance - allowing corrosion etc...

Good point.

[cowpoos]

They want to blame the trucks, but they should look at the fully loaded busses during rush hour (a full bus in Auckland:scratch:). They are quite heavy as well.
Ban all traffic from the clip-ons! BIKES ONLY!
yeah...bus is between 1/3 and 1/2 the weight of a fully laden class 5 truck and trailer.
so not exactly close to truck weight but still a heavy object none the less

[geoffm]

As I recall, you can blame then primeminister Sid Holland for the Snafu that is the Akl bridge. He made a promise that it would cost no more than 6 million pounds (approx $212,795,539 in todays dolalars acording to the CPI calculator at the reserve Bank), so rather than doing the job properly, they made it to fit a politicians promise, hence it has no rail link and the clipos were added a few years after. There was supposed to be a rail link - jus tthink how good th edrain system woudl be with a double loop to albany, greenhithe, westgate, henderson, city with a train in each direction.
Geoff

[merv]

Go the trains. Now there's a fortune being spent on the North Shore busway instead. Perth in Aus is a city that has shown how developing the train system has been great for the city.

[Swoop]

Go the trains. Now there's a fortune being spent on the North Shore busway instead. Perth in Aus is a city that has shown how developing the train system has been great for the city.
Auckland bought its trains from there...
Perth is flat.
Auckland has hills.
Trains that are used to flat areas, do not like hills for some reason... so they catch on fire.:buggerd:

[Finn]

All the major news channels have been turning up today to film the bridge. They love this sort of thing.

[Wolf]

All the major news channels have been turning up today to film the bridge. They love this sort of thing.
There's a reason they're called Culture Vultures...

Carrion

Sorry, Carry on...

[Ocean1]

Auckland bought its trains from there...
Perth is flat.
Auckland has hills.
Trains that are used to flat areas, do not like hills for some reason... so they catch on fire.:buggerd:

Actually they catch on fire because the bastard things aren't cleaned properly around the fuel tanks. Still, the same tightarse infrastructure budget policies are the root problem, we should have made new ones rather than tart up Aussie cast-offs.

Of course it'd help if the fucken things weren't immediately trashed when put into service, the cost of replacing upholstery and glass and removing grafiti is... dissapointing. It's probably also the main reason a lot of people don't use them.

[merv]

Yeah what I was meaning is we shouldn't fluff around with old crap we should build a decent system like Perth - Auckland reckons its going to happen now the Govt has agreed to electrify the railway. As for graffiti places like Perth use transit security guards (sorta like Police) to look after their system.

[mbazza]

Well you Jaffas do have something to worry about now, don't you! Cheer up, may never happen! Cheers.

[Ocean1]

Yeah what I was meaning is we shouldn't fluff around with old crap we should build a decent system like Perth - Auckland reckons its going to happen now the Govt has agreed to electrify the railway. As for grafiti places like Perth use transit security guards (sorta like Police) to look after their system.

Was in Perth a couple of months ago. The new south rail system was about to be opened, only a couple of months late and looking good. They do build infrastructure well, but it's a wealthy state with very high population growth. Also building anything there is a snap compared to here, smear a couple of sand dunes flat, box and pour. They do seem to have almost as much hassle with resource consent issues as us though.

[EJK]

But thank God that the bridge wasn't build by Chinese, if it had, then it would've failed in around 1960 lol

Oh, theres also this article about the plan on the new bridge (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/organisation/story.cfm?o_id=223&objectid=10438414)

P.S. Oh, that article is OLD!

[Qkkid]

Yep, the nippon clip-ons could fall off. Thats it, I'm sticking to the center bit from now on.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10469771

:gob:Dont be a big girl :shutup:

[peasea]

Well you Jaffas do have something to worry about now, don't you! Cheer up, may never happen! Cheers.

The sky is falling, the sky is falling......
Oh no, hang on, it's just a bridge; as you were...........

[Mikkel]

Just find an american with more money than sense (shouldn't be too hard) and sell the damn thing. Worked in London anyway - if old blighty can then Kiwiland should be able to as well, after all it's not rugby. :p

[Crisis management]

If the bridge goes theres an even better route north available....scenic drive, old north road, Sh16....just don't tell the car drivers!

[Macktheknife]

Oh, theres also this article about the plan on the new bridge (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/organisation/story.cfm?o_id=223&objectid=10438414)


I quite like that idea, pity it will never happen.

It is probably going to take twice as long and cost three times as much as it should to fix the existing one, why not build a new one and get smart about the bloody thing.

Sorry this is NZ, we will never get smart about stuff like infrastructure.

[peasea]

I quite like that idea, pity it will never happen.

It is probably going to take twice as long and cost three times as much as it should to fix the existing one, why not build a new one and get smart about the bloody thing.

Sorry this is NZ, we will never get smart about stuff like infrastructure.

Three letters:
R M A

[Krayy]

I'm going to lay some side bets that it goes when the body of the Auckland Marathon goes over the bridge.

All those people yomping up and down in unison...it cannae handle it Cap'n! :bye:

P.S. If we're REALLY lucky, it'll fail during the next Treaty march/hui/whatever the hell they call it.