After the Tragic Accident

摘要

The tragedy in Sweetwater, Fla., at Florida International University, where a pedestrian bridge under construction collapsed onto motorists, brought immediate responses both from ENR's editors and writers, who rushed to provide coverage, and from attentive readers c ENR.com, some of whom speculated about what had happened.1. Michael L: If the final structure needed the cables to hold up the bridge platform, how can the platform be placed post-and-lintel style without the cable attachments? The tower hadn't been built yet, so it was apparently planned to be cable-free for a while.2. Richard Meyer: As a practicing private civil engineer, I have never been a proponent of the design-build process. This process can subject the engineer to make inappropriate decisions to [benefit] the contractor's profit line. It also removes the engineer from one of the most important components of the design process, which is a direct line of communication with the project owner.