Hoan Bridge is Falling Down, My Fair Doylie!

Good ol' Jimbo. A legacy of fallen bridges to go with theft-by-fraud from the highway "trust" fund and from the State's doctors.

Small pieces of concrete have fallen from the Hoan Bridge, a Wisconsin Department of Transportation official said, prompting a plan to hang a net beneath the Milwaukee structure.

...Although the bridge is structurally sound, cracking concrete is another sign the span needs to be rebuilt or redecked, said Patricia Jursik, a Milwaukee County supervisor who has pressured WisDOT to engineer the project for more than a year.

“It’s well beyond its life expectancy, and everybody knows that,” Jursik said. “This thing was supposed to be redecked at the last budget cycle, but it wasn’t.”

The next Governor, Scott Walker, will undoubtedly be forced to include the re-decking in his next budget--assuming that OTHER bridges don't simply collapse due to Doyle's malfeasance.

Given that water seepage is the problem, Walker could take a look at this:

Materials researchers have found ways to extend pavement life to more than a century. Konstantin Sobolev, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee associate professor, is trying to build on that success and to further improve concrete’s ability to withstand water damage.

It will NOT come as a surprise to learn that the RoadBuilder Lobby is not enthused about Sobolev's research. But objections about route- or capacity-changes don't really apply to the Hoan, and should NEVER apply to that corridor.