Laval overpass collapse: freak occurrence or sign of failure?

Everyone keeps telling us not to panic, but it’s hard not to, when five unfortunate people left their homes on a beautiful sunny Saturday, only to end up flattened like pancakes on a Quebec highway.

Quebec Transport Minister, Michel Despres, keeps calling the incident “exceptional�, inferring that no one ever thought this structure would have ever caused a problem. Really? Was it more “exceptional� or less “exceptional� than the first overpass that collapsed in the Laval area, six years ago?

All of a sudden, infrastructure repairs, never the “sexiest� topic on federal, provincial and municipal budgets, have been pushed to the forefront and people want to know whether this tragedy was a freak occurrence or whether it points to something seriously rotten with Quebec roads and bridges; no pun intended.

Built in 1970, the Laval overpass was supposed to have a lifespan of 70 years, but only lasted 36. Why? When contacted by reporters, the engineer who created the design, categorically stated that the collapse was caused by inadequate maintenance, not a design flaw. Since I don’t have an engineering degree, I don’t know the first thing about building bridges, but I do know that you don’t go to the person who designed the structure that just collapsed for an objective opinion on its sturdiness!

However, if asked, I’m sure most Quebec drivers would agree with him, quickly pointing to the most likely culprit for these structural deficiencies: lack of maintenance. I’ve heard the time-honoured excuses, about drastic fluctuations in temperature and excessive salting leading to increased corrosion, but I no longer “buy� them, because road conditions always happen to be so dramatically different the minute one crosses the Ontario border or enters the United States.

Aside from maintenance issues, the other major factor --and a possible culprit-- is that most Quebec bridges and overpasses are functionally obsolete. In “The Lifespan of Bridges�, Daniel Myers explains that functionally obsolete bridges are bridges that no longer meet the needs they were designed for and are unable to carry the increased volume and/or loads of traffic. There’s no question that, compared to the 1970s, the number of trucks and the weight of these trucks on Quebec bridges and overpasses is significantly higher. How can this not affect the quality and lifespan of our infrastructures and why aren’t these factors taken into consideration and something done?

Public officials can feel free to tell me otherwise, but when you’re driving on the highway and mesh diapers, installed under overpasses, are collecting falling debris, don’t try and convince me that there isn’t a problem. Chunks of concrete should not be falling off structures that people drive on, day after day. And if they do, it certainly shouldn’t be acceptable, because, what could possibly be acceptable about gambling with people’s lives?