Opinion: The Cheap Mercedes and the Beautiful Bridge - Illinois Review -
JOHN F. DI LEO"...But no matter what the cause was,
we now know certain things for sure:• This bridge cost $110 million to build, 50 years ago. It will cost at least 1 billion to replace today, most likely much more than that.
• The
world survived without this bridge until 1977. While we have spent 47 years getting used to having it there, we will have to spend at least the next several years living without a bridge there...
• And very few people will ask the question that needs to be asked:
“Should it really be rebuilt?”...And the proper public policy question must be asked:
Is it worth the risk, now that we know what that risk is?...
- If we rebuild a bridge in front of a huge seaport, with several massive ships – container ships, brake bulk vessels, cruise ships, RO-RO vessels – crossing back and forth under the bridge every day, who’s to say that another ship, five years from now, won’t crash into it again? And then another, four years after that?
- We don’t build an enormous bridge encircling the port of Los Angeles that ships must travel under, back-and-forth, every hour. The risk of a collision is simply too great with that kind of traffic. Why do we do it in Baltimore?
