
New bridge collapses into river in eastern Saskatchewan hours after opening - ilamont
https://globalnews.ca/news/4461681/new-bridge-collapses-into-river-in-rural-saskatchewan-hours-after-opening/
======
niftich
The bridge is at 52.114667, -102.139722 [1][2], on a road named 'Dyck Memorial
Road' (unsigned) [3], west of the hamlet of Swan Plain which lies at the
intersection of SK Highway 8 and the aforementioned road.

The previous bridge was closed to heavy traffic in late 2017 [4], and the
complete replacement was planned over the summer of 2018 [5][6]. The project
was tendered and awarded to Can-Struct of Regina, SK, for CAD 325,000 [7].

[1]
[https://www.google.com/maps/place/52°06'52.8"N+102°08'23.0"W...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/52°06'52.8"N+102°08'23.0"W/)
[2]
[https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/256112153](https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/256112153)
[3]
[http://myrm.info/333/files/2017/11/RM333_2017_Fall.pdf](http://myrm.info/333/files/2017/11/RM333_2017_Fall.pdf)
[4] [http://myrm.info/333/notices/swan-plain-bridge-dyck-
memorial...](http://myrm.info/333/notices/swan-plain-bridge-dyck-memorial-
road/) [5] [http://myrm.info/333/notices/swan-plain-
bridge/](http://myrm.info/333/notices/swan-plain-bridge/) [6]
[http://myrm.info/333/notices/dyck-memorial-
bridge/](http://myrm.info/333/notices/dyck-memorial-bridge/) [7]
[https://www.sasktenders.ca/content/public/print.aspx?competi...](https://www.sasktenders.ca/content/public/print.aspx?competitionId=e6768101-7e1f-485a-b973-7cea1cea74bb)

~~~
aequitas
As a European it boggles my mind on how many long and straight roads there are
around the bridge. Here in the Netherlands we can't keep a road straight for
more than a few kilometers even on new land we created from the sea:
[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Flevoland/@52.382114,5.386...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Flevoland/@52.382114,5.3861645,11.75z)

~~~
refurb
Not that this completely answers your question, but this is in the middle of
the Canadian prairies. It’s very sparsely populated (less than a million in
the province of SK that’s about the size of California - with 2/3 in the
capital city). It’s amazingly flat. I can remember seeing thunderstorms over a
town that I just spent 2 hours driving away from at highway speeds (~200 km
away). It’s mostly partitioned out into huge, square farm land tracts.

Basically there isn’t much stopping you from building roads that run straight
for hundreds of kilometers.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Roads also tend to follow established routes because infrastructure tends to
pop up along well traveled places. Europe is full of wacky routes because some
farmers in the 1100s had go go around the land of the lord that was feuding
with their lord in order to trade with the people in a village on the land of
a lord who was on good terms with their lord. Then someone built an inn along
the route, then another village popped up, etc, etc Except for the eastern
edge, North America has neither of those sources of "legacy road" that
constrain the design of new roads. You can just build straight lines from A to
B to C.

------
ramshanker
Only today, my parallel-boss was explaining to me that only Canadian Codes
have started allowing monolithic bridge instead of traditional simply
supported configuration.

And evening, I get this news. Though only top slabs seems like monolithic
construction, and main bridge girder is still piece-wise simply supported.
It's enlightening to hear from the seniors.

Moreover, absence of R/f in top slab seems to be a demo case of new age "Just
do it with our admixture (chemicals)" pitching we get from some of the
manufactures.

EDIT: Looking from the picture: My first guess is support settlement of one of
the intermediate columns. One more thing, I found strange was that we
generally tend to avoid Steel Columns going below the top level of the water
in the stream, generally we keep Concrete coming few metre above the water
level and than steel starting, but the far off columns stills seems to be
going into the water. Even though, it's not that rare, all offshore steel
platform have still going into water but they are designed with far stringent
specifications and definitely not for such small scale bridges.

~~~
mturmon
From the tweet embedded in TFA:

"The bridge was built to Canadian Bridge Standards and unfortunately something
under the riverbed failed, that could not have been anticipated. This caused
the pier to sink and the middle span to fall off the pier cap and into the
river. "

~~~
m-p-3
So something in the riverbed failed now, but that didn't seem to be an issue
for the previous bridge that was there for ~50 years.

I can't reject the possibility, but that seems oddly timed.

------
McKayDavis
Google reverse image search found a higher resolution (2472x1930) photo of the
collapsed bridge:

[https://s.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/midas/984273818587a1353cda1...](https://s.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/midas/984273818587a1353cda15d940bb17e9/206675182/19764398.jpg)

I'm not saying it's not new... but it doesn't _look_ new.

~~~
derefr
It might have been, say, three years under construction, with a contract
dispute interrupting construction for 2.8 of those years, the bridge sitting
half-constructed and getting rain-weathered the entire time, and then just
finally this month, construction resumed, was completed, and the bridge
opened.

You know, like most Canadian buildings.

(Here in Vancouver, I see plenty of stick-built buildings left half-
constructed due to developer or zoning problems, with their frames and plywood
panelling just left exposed to the elements for months; and then construction
resumes and the building has sheeting and cladding and insulation slapped on
over just a few days. I've always wondered whether that traps in the moisture
that's accumulated in the wood over the previous months, leading to those
buildings having mould problems later on...)

~~~
ggcdn
> You know, like most Canadian buildings.

Not sure where you got that idea from, but as a structural engineer in
Vancouver I generally see the exact opposite. Once construction starts, it's
an all out scramble to finish as quickly as possible.

Also, zoning problems occur at the building permit stage, which is well before
construction starts.

~~~
derefr
I only know what I see walking around the neighbourhoods I frequent: buildings
(usually single-family dwellings, but sometimes low-rises) that have sat half-
completed, with no active construction, for months or even years.

I’ve always assumed it was a result of either the development company or their
general contractor going out of business / running out of budget before
completion; and that, when construction resumes, it’s because the site has
been liquidated and sold at auction to a new developer.

Other times, buildings (usually commercial) are left 90% finished for years at
a time—clad and insulated, but not wired or finished inside. I assume this
_these_ buildings are actually as finished as they’re going to get, and are
for sale, waiting for an initial owner to decide how they want to finish them
(instead of having to rip out and redo the previous interior and exterior),
and they just aren’t being publically advertised. They still look kind of like
blighted abandoned buildings, though, and kind of destroy the character of a
neighbourhood in a similar way to the half-built homes.

~~~
baud147258
I remember seeing nearly finished building in Croatia, lacking only the
exterior finish, but (apparently) with people living Inside. I first though it
was a cost-cutting measure, saving on seemingly unecessary work, but I've also
heard it was to avoid taxes on buildings.

~~~
smcl
That was my exact memory of Croatia - I remember so many _nearly_ finished
buildings with "rebar" sticking out of the top of walls or unfinished
exteriors - and they looked like they'd been that way for a while.

~~~
baud147258
Personnaly I did not see that many of them and they were all inland, not on
the coast, where the housing market might be different.

Also the remnants of the war had a much bigger impact on my memories of the
country: we saw a few buildings still covered with bullet holes and areas cut
off because of mines. That nearly two decades after the war such things were
still visible was an interesting experience.

~~~
baud147258
> an interesting experience.

Wrong choice of words here, I was trying to say "bigger impact"

------
rossdavidh
They keep saying "built to Canadian standards" in this article. I'm sure they
mean that as "built to 1st world, legally relevant standards", but given the
context it sounded like they were saying "Canadian standards" as an excuse for
why it fell down.

However, the previous bridge, presumably also built to Canadian standards,
held up for half a century and was still working (albeit apparently not
looking great) when they ordered it replaced.

~~~
rdtsc
> "Canadian standards" as an excuse for why it fell down.

It's a bit like here in US some construction companies will advertise they
"build to code". That sounds scary to me, as all I hear is they would really
like to cut corners, but it's those pesky building codes getting in the way.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
It's not so much that they want to build crap (margins are better on "nice"
things anyway) but that if you have to do something you may as well list it as
a feature. It's like how all the electronic nannys on modern cars are
advertised as features even though they're required.

Relevant illustration: [https://xkcd.com/641/](https://xkcd.com/641/)

Construction companies and contractors make money building things. An
estimate, quote or contract for whatever work is being done typically includes
a profit margin on materials, labor and anything sub'd out. If anything they
want code that specifies everything be grossly overbuilt.

~~~
dpark
> _margins are better on "nice" things anyway_

Not really. _Nice_ construction is generally not valued highly. Builders
construct to code because higher R-values, better house wrap, pressure treated
cladding, etc. don’t really raise the sale price of the house. If you’re
talking about multimillion dollar custom homes, sure, this stuff starts to
matter, mostly because the people buying multimillion dollar custom homes will
sue you for _only_ building to code because they expect better.

~~~
rossdavidh
All true but I think the more central issue is, whether or not the person who
will live in the house (or drive over the bridge) is present during
construction, and knowledgeable enough to notice whether things are being done
well. In general, the answer to one or the other is "no". The only exceptions
are, as you say, in multimillion dollar custom homes, and then only sometimes.

------
jessaustin
There might well be problems with the supports, but I'm surprised that there
are no beams in this design. Steel beams would be the most practical for this
size, but I don't see any pre-stressed concrete beams either. Concrete deck is
poured in place with non-stressed reinforcement, so it isn't very resistant to
bending, and is rarely expected to span such a distance by itself. I know of a
shorter one-lane bridge that never has more than one tractor or big truck on
it at one time, that nevertheless has a 6" steel beam under the concrete deck
under each tire track. Perhaps it was over-engineered, but then again perhaps
the bridge in TFA was under-engineered...

~~~
ggcdn
It looks to me like they are using timbers as beams, simply supported on the
steel piers. It's a very common bridge design for forest service roads and
other rural routes.

~~~
niftich
Can you point out where you see timber beams in the photo? I can't even find a
place where they would go; to me the deck looks like pour-in-place
unreinforced concrete that sheared right off at the piers; the deck is then
covered in what looks like gravel (which also seems a bit bizarre), then a
wooden guardrail on wooden posts is bolted into the concrete deck.

~~~
cmsmith
The bridge looks to be precast concrete box-girders (hollow rectangular beams
with plenty of steel reinforcement around the edges). The 'gravel' is the
asphalt roadway (often this will be cast-in-place concrete) that's poured on
top of the precast girders. The purpose of pouring the asphalt/concrete
roadway on top is as a sacrificial wear element to prevent the structural
beams being worn down by traffic.

------
izzydata
Looks like the closer sides pillars sunk.

~~~
chris_mc
I was going to say a similar thing:

Almost looks like the foundations/pilings sunk on the one side, causing the
concrete to fracture at the support points since it was being "bent" and then
the slabs to fall off of the support once it had sunk enough. Kinda like this
brick domino video [0], but with much larger slabs.

[0]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BTWiZ7CYoI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BTWiZ7CYoI)

------
syntheticnature
Huh. Canada takes engineering quite seriously.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_Bridge#First_design_and...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_Bridge#First_design_and_collapse_of_August_29,_1907)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring)

~~~
pmalynin
Lol who told you that. Engineering in Canada is essentially cultism.

Also here where I live (Edmonton) — the contractors had to rebuild the bridge
because even before they finished building it, it became bent.

During the latest election season a funny line came up during the debates:

“Our friends to the south are sending rockets into space, and we’re still
trying to figure out how to build bridges”

As I typed that I also just remember a piece of news about our new LRT line.
The new “high tech” signaling system is essentially broken, forcing the train
operators to run in “visual identification mode” —- meaning half the speed so
they can stop if they see something on the tracks. There is a lawsuit, and the
company has until December to fix it. The line has been open for about 2 years
now.

~~~
jrockway
I mean, our bridges in the US are not necessarily great. From the Tacoma
Narrows bridge to the I-35W bridge... sometimes they collapse.

~~~
stephengillie
Narrows was almost a century ago, and taught bridge builders to consider
airflow. The more recent I-5 bridge collapse was because a truck was too tall
and collided with bridge supports.

~~~
dboreham
Or perhaps: because designers failed to take into account the possibility that
someone would drive a too tall trck over the bridge?

~~~
theandrewbailey
I'm not a bridge engineer, but I'm pretty sure that height requirements are
there for a reason. In fact, I looked at this incident last week, and it
seemed that there was a different maximum height depending on which lane you
were in, but that was ignored/not acted on.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-5_Skagit_River_Bridge_collap...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-5_Skagit_River_Bridge_collapse)

 _The vertical clearance from the roadway to the upper arched beam in the
outer lane is 14 feet 7 inches (4.45 m), and all trucks with oversize loads
are expected to travel in the inside lane where the clearance is around 17
feet (5.2 m). The oversize truck instead entered the bridge in the outer lane,
while a second semi-truck and a BMW were passing it in the inner lane. ... A
pilot car was hired to ensure the load could pass safely. The pilot car never
signalled the truck driver that there would be a problem crossing the Skagit
bridge and did not warn the trucker to use an inside lane._

------
angersock
I'm slowly coming around to be thankful we don't build software like we build
bridges.

~~~
zaarn
If we build software like bridges then I wouldn't have to reboot my computer
because the taskbar vanished twice a month.

------
reaperducer
The anchor in the video keeps referring to "the R.M."

For those of us not up on Canadian geographic or political abbreviations, what
does that mean?

~~~
rrdharan
"Rural Municipality", I believe:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rural_municipalities_i...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rural_municipalities_in_Saskatchewan)

~~~
Serow225
Yup.

------
slobotron
AvE's gonna have a field day...

~~~
dredmorbius
Who?

~~~
dewyatt
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChWv6Pn_zP0rI6lgGt3MyfA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChWv6Pn_zP0rI6lgGt3MyfA)

------
danieltrembath
2018 alone has enough content for Henry Petroski's next book.

------
gumby
Canada still has reeves!!!?!?!? I thought that term was completely obsolete.
Do they have beedles too?

South of the border the US still has plenty of shire-reeves though, though no
shires!

~~~
k_sze
Where do you think Keanu comes from? ;-) (badumtss)

Jokes aside, I graduated from Concordia University in Montreal and feel quite
ironic that the Troitsky Bridge Building Competition is a thing while we seem
to suck at building real bridges.

Montreal has its fair share of bad bridges. IIRC, the Champlain Bridge was
touted as not requiring salt for de-icing in winter; it was never designed to
protect against salt, yet it was salted every winter. The concrete is so
damaged that a new bridge had to be built to replace it (which should complete
this year, I haven't been back to Montreal in a long time so I don't know what
it looks like now).

~~~
kelvin0
Needs no salting because there is always a ton of traffic on it and vehicles
can barely go over 20 KM/h. That's one way to reduce accidents I guess ...

------
perilunar
Even if it wasn't collapsed that would still be a pretty lame looking bridge.
Why would you put piles in the river for such a short span? Why is the design
so ugly?

~~~
ggcdn
The contract was like $350,000 for a bridge in rural Saskatchewan! Of course
it's going to be ugly.

~~~
Serow225
:)

------
notacoward
Move fast. Test in prod, lol.

------
goshx
Strange that this story picked up while in Miami a new bridge at FIU collapsed
even before inauguration and took some lives with it and HN didn't bother
much.

------
kelvin0
Wonder if this is due to a sinkhole type phenomena. They've caused a lot of
damage on public infrastructure in the past years it seems.

------
newnewpdro
That _barely_ qualified as a bridge before it collapsed.

They'd be better off with a portable "launchable" bridge from the US military:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M60_AVLB](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M60_AVLB)

------
rezeroed
I obviously know nothing about this sort of engineering, because to me this
looks like a teeny weeny bridge, taking ~50 cars a day - it breaking is barely
more newsworthy to me than dropping my coffee. Is this a sort of "not just in
Italy..." story?

~~~
etrevino
I assumed it was just the novelty of the bridge breaking immediately after
being finished.

