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Seven Engineers Suspended After $2.3M Bridge Includes 90-Degree Turn

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171 points _sbl_ | 2 comments | 10 Jul 25 16:10 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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oc1 ◴[10 Jul 25 16:21 UTC] No.44522688[source]▶
<< According to official records, the design for the bridge shifted multiple times over the past seven years, largely due to conflicts between the Public Works Department (PWD) and the Railways. The two agencies couldn’t agree on how to share land, and in trying to work around both railway property and the new Metro line, they ended up producing a final layout with an abrupt 90-degree angle.

I love that mindset. Europeans would have simply refused and 100 years later it would have probably been build after all legal has been cleared. Indians instead never say no. That's how you build software, so why not bridges.

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cs702 ◴[10 Jul 25 17:20 UTC] No.44523260[source]▶
Shouldn't the bureaucracies be penalized, instead of the poor engineers?

The engineers built the 90-degree layout specified by their clients!

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a paper trail documenting the engineers' objections, signed and notarized by the clients.

It's hard for me to judge the engineers without knowing more.

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Enginerrrd ◴[10 Jul 25 17:44 UTC] No.44523544[source]▶
No. I'm a licensed civil engineer in the US. The license comes with an explicit duty to the public, to uphold public safety. I am in responsible charge of the work I produce and personally liable for the safety of that work, in perpetuity, and it SHOULD be that way. Any plans that I produce are subject to that standard.

India has a similar system for public works projects where a licensed engineer MUST supervise the work.

Frankly, sometimes I think the software world would be a lot better off with a similar system.

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FinnKuhn ◴[10 Jul 25 18:00 UTC] No.44523746[source]▶
This doesn't look unsafe though, just inconvenient.

Both in the US[1] and UK[2] you can find bridges with actual 90-degree angles. The one in India[3] is more like 75 degrees.

[1]https://maps.app.goo.gl/3CBqVHbVEtonHjcr9 [2]https://maps.app.goo.gl/8cVB44VDJRPadY6s6 [3]https://maps.app.goo.gl/ikPSmLEGYwVJLqDz7

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Enginerrrd ◴[10 Jul 25 21:11 UTC] No.44525660[source]▶
Those are not the same at all.

Search for "swept path analysis" for just one component of what you're missing. (There are many other components of design of a curve like this to consider.)

A 90 degree change in direction is fine by itself provided there is sufficient radius for vehicles to make the turn at the design speed.

In this case, if its two lane you may not be so convinced of its safety when it's your loved one on a scooter who got hit by a bus which tracked over into the oncoming lane just to navigate the curve. Or if its a single lane, when they died on the ambulance which was stuck in traffic on the bridge because two vehicles are unable to pass and everyone behind them would need to backup in unison to sort out the resulting cluster.

But safety is only part of the duty to the public here. The bridge needs to function for its intended specification and if it fails to do so for basic engineering reasons, you absolutely have no business holding a license and signing off on public plans and indeed you would be disciplined or stripped of your license for something like this.

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freetinker ◴[11 Jul 25 02:15 UTC] No.44527822[source]▶
An elegant solution to this problem would be to enforce a very low speed limit entering the turn.

“Sharp turn ahead, reduce speed to 5 km/h”

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1. potato3732842 ◴[11 Jul 25 11:07 UTC] No.44530786[source]▶
Completely ignoring that the point of the bridge was to move a fuckton of traffic and saddling it with a restriction that makes it unfit for purpose if the users behave lawfully is not elegant. It is ignorant to the point of not being distinct from malice. It's like an adult version of one sibling being told don't touch the other and then they get in the others face while saying "I'm not touching you".
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2. FinnKuhn ◴[11 Jul 25 15:04 UTC] No.44532953[source]▶
Agreed, the bridge is definitely not fit for that purpose. It's still not dangerous though unless you take spiking heart rates caused by bad traffic into account. ;)