Politics & Government
Tom Tillberry: Send Firm That Inspected I-35W Bridge Packing
In a Star Tribune op-ed, the Fridley legislator again argues against URS Corp. getting more government contracts, including any part of work on the Southwest LRT project.
State Rep. Tom Tillberry (DFL-51B) of Fridley continues his effort to stop public contracts from going to URS Corp. with an op-ed article in today's Star Tribune.
, specifically the proposed Southwest Light Rail Transit project, in a letter last April. . Then last week came news that suggested Tillberry's argument had resonated: .
Here are excerpts from Tillberry's op-ed today:
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On Aug. 1, Minnesota will mark the five-year anniversary of the fall of the Interstate 35W bridge. ... My friend and neighbor Pat Holmes died on the bridge. Since that day, I have been waiting for URS, the company that was hired by the state to evaluate the integrity of the bridge, to apologize and to accept responsibility. ...
[URS] has been quite successful in lining up more state and local contracts. (While the Metropolitan Council has decided not to give URS the entire $94 million contract to engineer the new Southwest Corridor light-rail line from Minneapolis to Eden Prairie, the company could still bid and be awarded a substantial contract.) In the midst of all this comes the news that cables on the URS-designed Sabo Bridge were brought down by light winds of as little as 6 miles per hour because of a "vortex shedding" phenomenon well-known to bridge engineers and to anyone familiar with the 1940 Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse, an event viewable on YouTube. ...
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"The phenomenon can typically be controlled with even a small amount of damping," concluded the independent WJE Engineers Report. In other words, there was a cheap and easy solution that was simply missed by URS. ...
Bizarrely, a citizen, presumably without engineering training, took video of the Sabo Bridge cables vibrating—also available on YouTube—and thought there might be a problem. ...
We've tried everything with URS. We've given it the benefit of the doubt; we've waited for it to apologize; we've given it opportunities to make amends; we've even awarded it some more public contracts. But now it's time to send it packing.
More:
- See examples of the two YouTube clips Tillberry makes reference to by clicking the video thumbnails.
- Read the letter from Tillberry to Dayton by clicking on the PDF thumbnail.
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