Let’s Build Baltimore’s Broke Back Bridge Back Better!

If you want to skip my editorial comment and go directly to my meme just Click here

On March 26, 2024, at about 1:30 in the morning the 948-foot container ship MV Dali, with two Harbor Pilots aboard, lost power and navigation control in Baltimore’s Patapsco River and slammed into a pier of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, collapsing it into the river. The wreckage blocked the Port of Baltimore, America’s 9th-busiest port for international cargo shipments and the Nation’s busiest coal shipping port, and trapped 11 ships on the river, including four US Navy Ships deemed “critical to the Nation’s defense“. When built in 1977 the truss girder bridge was the (2nd) longest of its’ kind ever built, and carried over 11 million vehicles per year across the river.

Interesting Fact!
[The MV Dali, a Neopanamax container ship, was built by Koreans (in 2015), crewed by Indians, chartered to a Danish shipping company, and owned and registered in Singapore.]

Of course it didn’t take long for “Conspiracy Theorists” – perhaps more accurately referred to as “Conservative Fact-Checkers” – to suspect foul play: A foreign country hacked the ship’s electronic GPS navigation and / or SCADA control system, Biden wanted to stop coal shipments, bad actors wanted to keep US Navy ships at port, blah blah blah and yadda yadda yadda. I’ll let the pundits ponder that and wait for their conclusions.

And naturally, Joe Biden is using the disaster to cater to his allies (especially during an election year): He’ll redistribute wealth from Federal Taxpayers to pay for the rebuilding, give the construction jobs to Union Labor, and a “Progressive, Black, Millennial Mayor” of a Democrat city will get to brag about a brand new bridge.

Obviously, this requires a meme:

(Click here to read more about these achievements)

Estimates on a replacement bridge range from 2 to 15 years building time at a cost of between $400 Million and over $1 Billion dollars.

Some have suggested a cable-stayed design for the new bridge, where the road is suspended in air by using straight cables extending from the top of one or more tall towers. The center section of the original Key Bridge – the portion above the shipping lane(s) – was about 2,644 feet long with a vertical clearance of 185 feet from the water. Currently, the longest cable-stayed bridge in America is the Harbor Bridge crossing the harbor along US Highway 181 in Corpus Christi, TX. Built by the Doka subsidiary of Umdasch Group AG, Amstetten, Austria, when completed in mid-2024 the main span will be 1661 feet long with a tower height of 538 feet high and a vertical clearance of 205 feet. While impressive, the size of this cable-stayed bridge is nowhere near many of China’s versions, or the world’s longest (in Russia, whose title will soon be handed to Ma’anshan Yangtze River Railway and Road Bridge in Anhui Province, China after it opens in 2026).

So, it’s a safe bet Baltimore’s new Key Bridge, regardless of its’ design, will be designed, manufactured, and managed by some foreign company, built by expensive American Union Labor, and overseen by a number of overly-bureaucratic US Federal Agencies: It’s a far cry from the days when America could design, manufacture, build, and maintain massive construction projects on their own. With over 45,000 bridges in America “in poor condition”, and Biden pushing a $2,300,000,000,000 (that’s “TRILLION”) Infrastructure Plan that provides $650,000,000,000 (that’s “BILLIONS”) to repair or replace them (along with a hefty tax increase because their Democrats), Biden’s actions and results in Building Baltimore’s Broke Back Bridge Back Better could predict if his Infrastructure plan is a boom …or collapses.

BTW: The image of Biden holding a bridge made of Lego® blocks is based on a photo of Jonathan Lopes holding a model of New Jersey’s Bayonne Bridge. Read more about his construction achievement here.

Additional Reading: Read more about each of the projects I’ve mentioned:

The Panama Canal – The most ambitious man made canal built, showcasing America’s industrial strength after France’s construction effort failed.

The Empire State Building – Tallest building in the world at the time, completed in record time and finished ahead of schedule, and strong enough to survive an impact from a B-25 Mitchell airplane in 1945.

The Hoover Dam – Largest dam built at the time, built ahead of schedule and under budget, it was the largest construction project since the building of the Great Pyramids in Egypt.

San Francisco Bay Bridge – At 746 tall and 1.7 miles long the Golden Gate Bridge was the tallest and longest suspension bridge in the world when it opened, and even survived and earthquake while under construction.

NASA’s Apollo Space Flight Program – The world’s first manned round trip spaceflight and landing on the moon required over 400,000 scientists, engineers, and technicians, cost the equivalent of $152,000,000,000,000 in 2019 dollars, and invented at least 7 products we still use today. (For even more interesting facts Click Here).

Francis Scott Key Bridge – When it opened in 1977 it was America’s second-longest continuous truss girder bridge. Built by the US Army Corps of Engineers – not a private company – its’ construction and maintenance was completely paid for from tolls (not taxes).

Thanks for Reading!