Not what you want to see

[twistsol]

When I got back to MSP on Friday, this was what I found in the parking spots next to my truck.

[phrog]

While going to undergrad school, one morning I parked in a small university lot where a concert was going to take place at 8PM. After class, I had to work in the University Library until 6 PM. I got to my car around 6:30 PM to find it surrounded by cops who had called a towing truck to have it removed. They concluded that I had broken no rules and allowed me to leave without further ado. However, had I been 15 minutes later, my car would have been gone although I had all the proper permits and had broken no rules.

[cwsmith]

Personally, I am always a bit nervous parking in these "ramp" or "garages"! While some might well view that as silly, you never quite know. Case in point is that just last week the parking ramp at the local UHS hospital (Johnson City, NY) collapsed. No warning, just a big "crash" as the upper deck pancaked onto the lower ones.

Thank GOD, nobody was injured... at least as far as we know yet. They've spent the last few days with dogs and excavation equipment removing the concrete and smashed cars.

What really bothers me is that nobody seems to be charged with the responsibility. It was reported that the hospital spokesman said that all their maintenance is the responsibility of an engineering maintenance firm in Syacuse; in turn, they said that they inspected in 2013 and made recommendations, in turn the company who did those fixes said that it was a poor design. Investigation continues.

My wife and I drove by there yesterday, and their main parking ramp (adjacent to the one that collapsed) is now closed. But even it looks terrible. Steel and concrete construction, you can see heavily rusted plates, concrete slabs that look like they are sitting on concrete pillars by only a few inches.

While I'm not an engineer, I have worked with lots of different engineering disciplines and I know of some of the procedural requirements like planning review, concrete inspections during process, and even x-ray of weld and assembly joints. How can this kind of thing happen?

I grew up in this area and I've seen a lot of poor engineering and construction and nobody ever seems to be charged or held responsible. For example, we build a large incinerator plant... on first use, the walls buckled and it could never be used at more than a fraction of it's original design capacity. In the 70's we had major construction on the down-town government plaza. Among those renewal failures was a pedestrian park and fountain on top of the new county sheriff's dept.... first use, it cracked and leaked in the offices below. The concrete pedestrian bridge that crossed over to the main government plaza was found unsafe and for decades it remained closed. The State tower had a transformer fire and PCB's were pumped throughout the building, closing it for almost three decades. The Marine Midland plaza built at the same time was found to laces with asbestos contamination and it closed after only a few years in service.

Before this, we had a major bridge sidewalk collapse, killing a city employee... that bridge has been closed since. Our main "Memorial" bridge has also been closed to road traffic for more than 30 years now.

No contractor, service, designer, or even politician has ever been charged with any kind of responsibility for any of this.

Our whole city, and far too many structures are in terrible decay. Such is what most of America has become I'm afraid,

CWS.

[LCHIEN]

Half of engineering graduates graduated in the bottom half of their class.
Same is true of doctors, of course.
Anyway...

[leehljp]

It has always bothered me that steel rods rust so bad when in contact with concrete and moisture. I know there are ways to prevent that rusting out. But I wonder how many times it gets overlooked or swept under the table intentionally "unintentional".

[phrog]

Wow! I missed the whole point you were making. I thought you were complaining about the "No Parking" sign. I didn't see the garage problems until I read the other posts.

[capncarl]

A failing concrete structure is very hard to repair and usually ends badly. In one of my hardest jobs I spent a number of years fighting deteriorating concrete and rebar corrosion, and was finally forced to fill over 300 feet of the plant basement with concrete. Quite a resume.

Engineering is the art of figuring out which parameters you can safely ignore! And, you have Structural Engineering because architects don't know what physics is!

capncarl

[BadeMillsap]

YIKES!

[tfischer]

I really hope that this is just some minor concrete surface spalling because those 2x4's aren't going to hold much load.

[capncarl]

De-icing salt is a killer of bridges and roadways. I've never thought about it also including parking decks, but if they salt any of the parking deck it could likely penetrate the cracks in the concrete and rust the rebar. There is a lot of sub-standard engineering and workmanship in concrete structures that really is inexcusable. I expect that over the next decade a lot of concrete structure failure will surface with "imported" rebar being culprit. Notice that I didn't blame it all on Chinese rebar because a lot of other steel and rebar is imported that could be questionable.

[TB Roye]

They are having a terrible time with corrosion on these steel rods that the salt air and moisture got into during the build of the new Bay Bridge, The main support Tower for the suspension bridge. these were made in............China along with other steel parts some of the rods have broken under tension. It is a big expensive fiasco the Department of Transportation (CALTRANS) have said they have and are fixing it but they keep finding more corrosion and rod breakage. They didn't seal things properly or protect thing while building it. It has become a scandal This thing was designed to with stand a 8.0 earthquake but who know now.

[Kristofor]

<snip> but if they salt any of the parking deck it could likely penetrate the cracks in the concrete and rust the rebar.

Spoken like a Southerner . You don't need to salt the decks directly when thousands of vehicles coated in salt and salt slush are driving and parking there five months out of the year. Smaller outstate roads may not see much salt but every driving surface in the cities has a thick white rime on it when the snow/ice has evaporated from the road.

My car spends about 3 months per year total time parked in the MSP ramps. It always comes out oddly dirty but I have yet to find a pile debris on the hood or roof so I guess I should be grateful.

[gerti]

Yikes, my car spends about a month per year at MSP parking too! That does not exactly instill confidence, especially in a city that had the 35W bridge collapse and the Metrodome (air pressure supported roof in a city that sees a lot of snow... Smart!)

[tfischer]

Yikes, I missed the fact that it was one of the MSP ramps.

[sailor55330]

I park here at least 60 times a year. Just one more thing I hate about Minnesota (sorry to the natives, but this southern boy hasn't learned to adapt after 9 years and probably never will). To me, Minneapolis in general is a complete failure when it comes to civil engineering and street/parking planning as compared to any other major metropolitan area I have navigated.

To drive my point home, who actually thought a couple of 2x4's would do any good. That's like building a deck on toothpicks.

Glad I have a company car.