Obama At Independence Hall Tomorrow

OMGOMGOMG! Noted next president Barack Obama will meet with the nation’s governors tomorrow at Independence Hall at the annual national governor meeting. KYW 1060 says “This is not just a ceremonial photo opportunity event,” and so here’s what’s going down:

Many of the governor’s states are facing financial crises at the local level. Philadelphia is a good example of that and a dialogue with the governors is essential to get legislative support for Obama’s coming financial stimulus program, Governors want tax relief; new bridges and projects to create jobs.

Sweet! New Deal-type programs creating new bridges and tax relief. Everything I want in a president. On the plus side, does a national governor meeting mean Sarah Palin and Arnold Schwarzenegger are in town?! Ooh, now I am officially excited.

Nation’s Governors to Convene in Philadelphia [KYW 1060]

South Street Bridge: The Survey

Sarah got this survey walking over the South Street Bridge this morning. Here’s one of the exciting questions!

Yes, reconstruction on the South Street Bridge is apparently going to actually start soon, so soon that they’ve gotten to the all-important “handing out surveys” portion of the project. The new design isn’t quite so hideous and unfriendly, even! Penn is building a “Weave Bridge,” whatever that is.

We will all be highly inconvenienced in just a short while.

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All Pennsylvania Does Is Discount Bridges

Since the state has a ton of old bridges that are falling apart and would be pointless to fix, they’ve come up with a novel way to get rid of them: Sell them to the highest bidder.

The term “highest bidder” is a bit of a misnomer here; the state sold a bridge in 2001 for $22.

PennDOT has a bunch of bridges listed on the website; you can apparently buy them if you have the money to take them away. The bridges will probably collapse eventually because a ton of them are made out of parchment; please be careful.

El Toro, Bob Will Reign Protest Bureaucracy

We don’t have too much political graffiti here in the good ol’ US of A, only a couple of anti-war signs and more anti-war signs. But don’t fix a bridge in New Jersey, and somebody in Camden will make a statement!

The “historic” State Street Bridge is “fresh off its latest round of structural damage” and has been out of service since Aug. 20. It also closed during 1999 and 2004. And though residents thought the bridge was important enough to fix right away, nobody seemed to help them. So a resident took his spray can and the Camden Courier-Post infuriatingly didn’t show us the whole message.

“If the State St. Bridge were in Cherry Hill or Haddonfield it would have been fixed in one day. Where are your politicians now?” it read.

Where’s your messiah now, Camden? The graffiti was sadly removed due to “unauthorized use of the pavement,” like those kids from my high school who spray-painted the school’s initials on I-95 a few years back.

Historic city bridge to be fixed [Camden Courier-Post]

Every Bridge In Area About To Collapse

Hey, remember that bridge that collapsed in Minnesota? Yeah, it wasn’t that long ago, but now we’re on to Hurricane Dean (Cain), so it’s okay if you forgot. Anyway, a bridge collapsed in Minnesota and people died and it was all sad.

The bridge was rated “structurally deficient” before it collapsed, but didn’t have any weight restrictions and remained open. And guess where else there are structurally deficient bridges? Yes: All over the freaking country. Actually, 57 bridges in the area are rated as bad or worse than the Minnesota bridge.

The Minnesota bridge was rated a 50 (out of 100). One bridge, in Bridgeport (duh), is rated a 3. A three! Yet the engineer for the state says: “It’s bad, but it’s safe.” Not to quarrel with someone who knows much more about this than I do, but I think I’ll try to avoid that bridge. Fortunately, I don’t have a car.

Statistically, the chances of you personally being on a bridge when it collapses is most likely infinitesimally low. Or, rather, it would be if every fifteen bridges on I-95 weren’t rated lower than the Minnesota bridge. (Plus: Seven more on the turnpike!) And if you’re headed to New Jersey, the Burlington-Bristol Bridge is actually going to collapse later today, and it doesn’t cost a nickel anymore, so I’d go over the Tacony-Palmyra instead.

57 bridges in area rate ‘deficient’ [Inquirer]

Surprise!: 25 Percent Of Pa. Bridges Ready To Collapse

Every time there’s a big national disaster, the local press does their usual job of localizing — and scaring us. Just check out the highly scientific survey from NBC 10:

NBC 10 conducted a survey and asked, “How concerned are you about the safety of local bridges?”

Forty-five percent said, “very concerned,” 29 percent said “somewhat concerned” and 20 percent are “Not worried at all.”

Gee, I wonder who could make the public so concerned about bridge safety?

“It’s very scary. Don’t think I’m going over a bridge anytime soon,” Eileen Vitale, of Northeast Philadelphia, said. Everyone NBC 10 talked to said they would think twice before driving over a bridge that crosses either water or a city street.

Jean Unger, of Kensington, said she would cross her fingers and hold her breath until she got on the other side of a bridge.

Oh, right.

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