Times of Northwest Indiana
Many important questions surround the recent closure of the Cline Avenue bridge between East Chicago and Hammond, including how the bridge regressed to such poor structural condition that an emergency closure was necessary. A strong need remains for region and state transportation officials to evaluate and improve the way they ensure structural integrity and functional design of road bridges. However, one bright spot in the recent Cline Avenue closure was the ability of state transportation officials to close the structure before any catastrophic events occurred.
Not long ago, a bride span in Minneapolis collapsed, killing 13 people and injuring hundreds. Like the Minnesota bridge, the Cline Avenue structure is part of a major traffic thoroughfare, with hundreds of human lives depending on safe passage over the span every day. State transportation officials should be congratulated for reviewing recent engineering data and opting to close the bridge rather than risking calamity.
The Indiana Department of Transportation should now take its time in devising fixes for the structure and do the job right. Though an inconvenience for travel and commerce, keeping the bridge closed and devising thorough, long-term solutions will cost less than a large-scale tragedy.
But as the state reviews the Cline Avenue span, larger issues remain regarding all of the region's elevated road surfaces and the system used for evaluating structural integrity of bridges owned by the state, county and local municipalities.
As The Times pointed out in a related editorial earlier this week and in three separate investigations published between 2005 and 2009, federal data consistently shows that about a quarter of all Lake and Porter county road bridges are deemed by engineers to be structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.
Congratulations to state transportation officials for using the available data to avoid a tragedy. But now it's time to figure out why we reached this point to begin with and whether improved inspection procedures and leveraged resources for repair can solve this perennial region infrastructure problem. If we can do that in the region and state, others facing similar problems will look to us for leadership.