Oh Look, the Bridge is Up

On Dan McKee and the state of the American bridge

iykyk

In December, Rhode Island governor Dan McKee abruptly closed the I-195 bridge in Providence. This structure, also called the Washington Bridge, spans a 90-foot plummet into some of the most polluted waters in the state.

McKee closed the bridge with great reluctance; it was the end of the day and his mother expected him home in time to watch Wheel. “I’m very good at Wheel of Fortune,” McKee said during his 2022 gubernatorial run. “One time, the solution was RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT. I almost got that one.” He had to stay so late managing the bridge crisis he missed the first half of that night’s show.

The bridge had to be closed in December because an inspection five days earlier had determined that the rebar pins providing vertical support to the structure had to be intact, rather than sheared and gapped by about five inches, in order to do anything. “I can’t believe you sent me in there,” the inspector commented after racing out from beneath the structure.

When asked why he didn’t close the bridge sooner, McKee stated, “the bridge collapsing on its own would have saved the state an enormous amount of money. We wanted to wait and see. Now, unfortunately, we’ll have to demolish it, which could be expensive.” Ford Motors did something similar in the sixties with the Pinto, you might remember.

The United States, which gained its initial wealth from slavery, is certainly a country where property and companies are valued higher than human lives. But no property is so poorly regarded as governmental property because, by its nature, it provides little-to-no value.

“The money made off of roads never compares to the amount that goes into building them and tearing them down to rebuild them,” financial analyst Lucian Parr stated in an interview earlier this week. “If we’re not making money off of a bridge just sitting there, then why not let it fall into decrepitude? That way, we can get some money to rebuild it.”

The circular logic of this explanation, when pointed out to Mr. Parr by this reporter, still eluded him. 

But Mr. Parr and Gov. McKee are not the only ones thinking in these circles. In Pittsburgh in 2022 a bridge collapsed while government officials waffled. While this may have saved the city demolition fees, cleaning up—and paying lawyers to protect the city from being sued by those injured—cost money too. “This could have been much worse,” Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman said at the time. “It could have happened overnight, when I was asleep. And the phone calls would have woken me up.”

“It’s hard to know which is the right course to take,” McKee lamented. 

Then there’s the Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland. That bridge wasn’t even crumbling yet, which goes to show that sometimes disasters strike vital infrastructure. Fortunately, politicians can take advantage of that to gain visibility, clout, and funding—which is easier to come by after disasters rather than before them. 

Reflecting on how he thought he’d handled the emergency closure of the I-195, McKee said, “People are really impressed with how I’ve handled this whole fiasco.” Currently, the FBI is investigating whether or not the RI Department of Transportation managed the building of the bridge legally. McKee was quick to point out that this is not the first time his office has been investigated by the FBI. “I know how to handle these sorts of things,” he said during our phone interview. Then he added, “you can’t tell, but I just winked.”

This is not just a northeast corridor issue. Across the nation, 42,391 bridges are structurally deficient and in poor condition. In 2019, that number was 46,155, which is an improvement of less than 10% in four-plus years.

These structural woes come as the United States continues a Soviet-Olympic-era-esque streak of record-breaking precipitation events. Many climatologists have demonstrated that the uptick in rainfall is only the beginning of major weather changes brought about by climate change. That our infrastructure is already crumbling should worry leaders, like the governor of the state that boasts it’s “three-percent bigger and low tide.” But McKee took this phone interview from his couch. Wheel of Fortune was on. Dan McKee’s personal idol, Pat Sajak, is skeptical about climate change.

“Damn it, I almost had that one,” McKee exclaimed as our interview wound down. Afterward, this reporter looked up what puzzle he’d been watching when he said that. The hint was “Hoax?” and the solution: ANTHROPOGENIC CLIMATE CHANGE.