When a trio of homeless men allegedly lit a pile of construction materials ablaze beneath an I-85 overpass in Atlanta, Georgia, in late March, the conflagration destroyed a 100-foot section of the bridge, which plummeted to the ground and brought traffic to a halt. With a chunk missing from a major transportation artery in one of the world’s most congested cities, highway officials knew they had to act fast?that stretch of road carries about a quarter of a million vehicles every day.
Using not-so-new techniques formulated to address America’s long list of aging spans, the Georgia Department of Transportation rebuilt the collapsed overpass in a little less than two months, replacing 350 feet of roadway.
As infrastructure projects go, that?s a lightning-quick turnaround that could serve as a model elsewhere. The majority of America?s roadways received a D grade earlier this year in the quadrennial infrastructure report card issued by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Bridges fared somewhat better, earning a C+, and officials from ASCE attribute the better grade to a building technique known as Accelerated Bridge Construction, or ABC.
There are more than 600,000 bridges in the United States, and nearly a quarter of a million are more than 50 years old. Since the White House has stated it would like to spend as much as $1 trillion on infrastructure?a detailed plan has yet to take shape?it’s possible transportation planners could get needed funds to ...