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What's a defect associated with installation among friends?
By adamg on Fri, 08/17/2007 - 10:51am
Globe: US sees flaw in Zakim Bridge.
Dan Kennedy: I assume - I hope - that the Globe is going to keep hammering away at this:
... No doubt [Transportation Secretary] Cohen and his boss, Gov. Deval Patrick, are freaking out at the prospect of another multizillion-dollar repair job. But people will have to understand that it wasn't the Patrick administration who oversaw this shoddy project, and that it's worth any price to prevent what happened in Minneapolis from happening here. ...
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Comments
The problem has to be fixed.....NOW!!
If it means closing the Zakim Bridge for awhile, and/or raising the tolls/gas taxes in order to pay for it, or, if it means the company(ies) have to pay, so be it!! The fact that it was noticed a couple of years ago and wasn't acted on then was way, way shortsighted on the state's part.
Is it really a problem?
Unfortunately the media sucks about figuring out what is and what isn't a real structural problem. And they tend to panic people like independentminded here, often for no good reason. Making it difficult to tell when real outrage/panic is warranted.
Of course, I used to think that it was ALL hype, and that the engineers and politicians in charge of these things wouldn't ever let something get so bad that the general public would be in danger, so what do I know?
Let's hope you and the state are right
And that this really is just a sort of cosmetic thing. Unfortunately, the people in charge of the Big Dig (of which the Zakim is a part), don't have such a good record that we can just blindly trust them anymore.
Hey look,
it sounds as if the warped plates on the Zakim Bridge really do need looking into. Unfortunately, it's not all hype--it's true. It's been true for a hundred years, and it's true now.
Also, given the piss-poor track records of the people running the Big Dig, why should they be trusted??!? They shouldn't, imo.
Huh?
Uhh...I don't think I get what you're saying here.
My point was that it's hard for the media, and even harder for the public, to determine the urgency or severity of technical problems.
That's why I objected to the headline of your first comment, demanding that these plates be replaced immediately. I certainly agree that they need "looking into."
As far as hype, there's tons of hype in the media. Sometimes they have to write a story where there isn't any story. Sometimes they just don't understand stuff. But there's lots of hype and always has been. Sometimes they're right, too, but I don't start from that assumption, especially when it comes to technical topics. Despite all that's happened, I'm still more cynical about the press than I am about engineers (though it's obviously trending the other way).
As far as the issue of who to trust, well, it's problematic. But the Secretary of Transportation quoted in the Globe article had nothing to do with the Big Dig until earlier this year, so you're sort of judging him based on a track record that doesn't belong to him. On the other hand, we can't say based on that article where he's getting his information.
I guess it kind of sounds like I'm saying don't panic, but I'm not doing a very good job of giving reasons why not to, because I don't really have any. Oh well. Sorry I couldn't help.
While it's true that there is often much media hype,
sensationalism and lack of understand on the part of the media, it's also true that if the media didn't expose certain things, then it wouldn't be doing its job. Unfortunately, nowadays, the media has been stifled effectively by the Bush Administration, thus effectively hampering the media's ability to do what it's supposed to do: Keep people abreast of and informed of what goes on.