Rollfast

HOWEVER THAT WAS he was going to have to use that lane anyway. It was a narrow 4-lane from the mid 50s, he was being passed and if anything it seems that commuications between the trucking co, WSDOT and any intermediary were not very adequite.

In restrospect, which does no good other than to guide others, the load needed to detour to one of the parallel bridges or take an alternate route.

However again, it was probably not likely to be going through Mt. Vernon proper as the detoured are now and the cargo would possibly be a political football given the howling over 'megaloads' being permitted over Hwy. 12 in northern Idaho.

As for the claim of rust, the bridge was inspected regularly and not found to be structurally deficient, just OBSOLETE. This does NOT mean it was ready to fail but that the design was outdated and in need of replacement at some point.

The Alaskan Way Viaduct inside Seattle is rated far lower than this bridge was and THAT has been getting retrofitting and replacement.

The reality of it all is that Washington state is not any different than the others. People hate taxes but love getting places on the roads and the balance has shifted from fixing old viable roads to just building new ones sometimes, only to revert to constant patching of potholes and little else. Washington has some of the worst budgeting woes in the West...not a California but they are NASTY and they had to balance the budget as it's a constitutional mandate just like it is in most every state,

Eisenhower didn't build the Insterstate system for the MILITARY...he saw the benefits of the Autobahn and other important European roads during the war and used Communism as an excuse to get Americans to stomach the project. When all the nice shiny cars and suburbia, ease of travel with cheap fuel followed that there was no turning back at that point.

Now the Interstates were built for high speed and quick travel and down the road (not a pun) this meant lots of straight and monotonous driving that pacified drivers into a false sense of confidence, complacency and carnage from bad habits and fatigue with no real chance of those Utopian automated roadways of car shows ever occuring...folks like to control their vehicles (one REAL reason public transportation isn't very popular in the US).

Lots of work to fix dangerous curves and build warning 'rumblers', eliminate certain entrances and exits to prevent wrong way driving etc and not enough time spent replacing bridges and overpasses due to the massive traffic headaches (until it fails and you absolutely DO have one).

We were brought up on inexpensive travel and learned to ignore the dangers until now, and may well forget again. Still, as suggested by the content of another member's comments, expensive fuel isn't the answer and won't teach any lessons. The rest of the world is no different than we are. We introduced cars to them and while they have their own systems they still feel that cars are not only necessary (some truly are) but somewhat vital to the quality of personal living. There are persons with more practical means in mind, but humanity has spread out so far from central living than ever with transportation and our cities are crammed to where it made production less profitable and in turn the cheaper labor areas have less of these problems, people still leave the farms and villages to work in the cities andthe same patterns of blight and dysfunction occurs over and over.

Does it mean I'm going to forego seeing my relatives until they are dead though? I'm not at all into camping.

Thoughts for you.