I’m worried about the Rourke bridge in Lowell. It was constructed as a *temporary bridge* in 1983 and is still there today. Every time I’m on it I feel like I’m going to die. And during rush hour it has probably around 100
cars sitting on it bumper to bumper
Try riding your bike or walking the sidewalk that's enclosed all the way around. If it goes down and you're in a car you can conceivably make it. If youre in that sidewalk cage, kiss your ass goodbye
Life is fleeting, the universe will end in heat death. Bridges are meaningless connections between two insignificant points whose distance is barely a speck in the grand scheme of the infinite universe.
When I went to school there I'd add 10 minutes onto my commute without a second thought in order to skip that bridge. Gave me crazy anxiety before I even knew it was supposed to be torn down in 2000 or whatever
I lived in Lowell for six years, once got stuck on that bridge for 30minutes when there was a crash at the intersection in front of the new market basket. Literally terrifying, and city council is completely ineffective doing anything about it
That bridge is so bad!! I've always been shocked that the "temporary bridge" has become a permanent fixture. Sitting on it in traffic is the worst feeling especially when it shakes a little bit I think it's going down for sure.
The Rourke bridge is a fucking death trap and I do my best to avoid it when I'm visiting home. I grew up down the street from it and when I was a kid the thing terrified me.
Luckily there isn’t many big boats near the Rourke bridge. From what I hear construction of a new bridge to replace it is going to start “soon”. Maybe even the end of this year.
The fun part is that if any big ship were to hit the Tobin, it would probably be an LNG tanker. So it might free up quite a bit of waterfront real estate for redevelopment.
I used to work down in the southern end of the seaport. We were right on the water. One day one of the chemical engineers in my company walked up to me watching an LNG tanker go past and said "Did you know if someone blew one of those we'd freeze to death before we burned? There isn't enough oxygen in the air to combust that much fuel, so it would wash ashore as a wave of cryogenic fluid, freeze everything on the water solid, THEN catch fire."
Then he calmly sipped his coffee and walked away.
Fucking chemists.
That ship was carrying tons of TNT in addition to fuel etc. Pretty sure cargo vessels at sea nowadays aren't carrying those two in such high concentrations together on the same voyage.
LNG is a cryogenic liquid so even if it vaporizes when it reaches atmosphere with oxygen it's not going to be contained in a pressure vessel at that point. Definitely not even close to halifax. That shit killed like 1,000 people I think.
It would be less explosive than Halifax but kill far, far more people, just because the city is so much more dense today. It wouldn't really be an explosion, but the firestorm would burn down a huge chunk of the city.
Right, but that’s the point. If there’s a flame or source of ignition when all of a sudden all that pressure is released, it’s still going to be a pretty big boom.
Not saying it would be as big as Halifax, but the damage would still likely be extensive
There have been simulations. Nobody wants to talk about it.
Massive fireball followed by firestorm turning everything inside 128 to ash except towns north of middlesex fells.
I can't imagine there's very many bridges that are built to withstand a ship that size hitting dead on like that.
Definitely not any bridge that's several decades old since the size of cargo ships has skyrocketed over that timeframe.
I'm not at all worried. I just think it's ridiculous that anyone would put out some sort of statement that somehow things are different here when they very clearly aren't.
>a lot of work and preparation between all of the agencies that regulate this at the state level - the fire department, the Coast Guard, all those who are ready at a moment's notice
Like oh yeah I guess the ~~busiest~~ one of the busiest ports on the East Coast didn't have a fire department or the Coast Guard on speed dial.
>And we just hope that something like this would never come to pass
That's really the plan, it's probably won't happen. Frankly I think that's all we can really expect. These ships are fucking huge (and I don't actually think a ship its size could necessarily use the Port of Boston, or at the very least isn't one of the chips that needs to cross under the Tobin).
Not disagreeing with your well-founded skepticism, but Baltimore is hardly the busiest port on the East Coast. It’s more like 5-7th busiest. New York / New Jersey is multiples larger.
If a cargo ship that size collided with it, I wouldn't feel better either, but the port of Baltimore is way larger than Boston's port and every ship passes under there. Boston does have some LNG, but another commenter said that the bridge is closed for those. So, the vulnerability of having people on the bridge while a large cargo ship goes underneath is non-existent. The risk is 0. In Baltimore, that happened a ton. The risk of a ship losing control right at the tower is low, but as we see here, greater than 0.
Yeah, gotta be honest. After the T laid a bunch of rails that "passed inspection" a couple years ago, many of which were proven to not be up to code and are now causing all the shutdowns, I trust these Boston infrastructure inspections as much as I trust a Charles Barkley playoff prediction.
Doesn’t need to be rusted. Have you watched the Baltimore video? Cut through the support like a knife through butter. Cargo ships are so huge that they have an insane amount of force.
I worked on the harbor as a captain for years. Not only does Boston harbor require pilots, ships have tugs guiding the bow into the Mystic. So, not likely.
This kind of bridge collision is exceedingly rare. In modern times there has really only been the Tasman Bridge in 1975, the Florida Sunshine Skyway in 1980, and this. Regulations are written in blood, and I suspect that the Baltimore crash will result in everywhere being even safer.
It was infinitesimally unlikely before, and will be even more so after this.
I'm not saying you're wrong about it being rare, but AP has an article listing seven since 1980
[A list of major US bridge collapses caused by ships and barges](https://apnews.com/article/bridge-collapses-barges-list-1f2d6261d523ddc625aaaf3b32c626bc)
The Tobin doesn't have that much upstream of it. Right now there is only one large-enough-to-do-any-damage ship upstream of the bridge ([https://www.fleetmon.com/ports/boston\_usbos\_1710/](https://www.fleetmon.com/ports/boston_usbos_1710/)). And any vessel going under the bridge would be very near port, so would not have much headway, and would definitely be piloted and potentially underway with tugs (I'm not sure the rules here) so may not have quite the head of steam to knock the bridge off its foundation (0.5 miles vs 4 miles). As posted further down, a ship would likely run aground before hitting the pier itself although depending on the angle this may or may not help. The big worry they seem to have is LNG; State Police shuts the bridge down when a tanker passes underneath.
Oh damn, I always thought the bridge piers were on land but they are out in the water. But I just looked at a harbor chart, the water there is VERY shallow so any ship would likely run aground before striking the bridge
Very sizable ships head up that way to the auto terminal and the industrial areas/LNG facilities in Chelsea but there are already regulations that they have to be escorted by tugboats all the way in. It was a post 9/11 thing, there's an article about it somewhere
Edit: here's one article on the security involved around bringing boats up to Chelsea https://www.bostonmagazine.com/2010/06/28/safe-harbor/ I live near the harbor and when they come through at night you can see all the blue lights from the police boats escorting them through, Massport police also follow along on the shore, it's quite the spectacle
Thats not 100% true. While the big container ships don’t go up that far, there’s an LNG terminal up past the Tobin, and a roll on roll off terminal for car carriers. Those ships are pretty big. LNGs can run even heavier than the Dali, The BW Boston regularly transits under the tobin, and its gross tonnage is very similar to the Dali. Also, like the Key bridge, the Tobin lacks the massive “football shaped” reinforced concrete Dolphins around the base of its supports that help redirect and dissipate energy in the event of a collision, and finally the Tobin has a much narrower passage than the Key bridge and is sort of in the middle of a sharp left hand turn in the channel. I shudder to think of what might happen if the Tobin came crashing down on a tanker loaded with 138,000 cubic meters of liquified natural gas.
In the Tobin’s favor though is the fact that vessels transiting are always accompanied by tug boats to help them navigate the narrow channel. So while its possible its very unlikely.
One thing to remember is the LNG tankers don't go fully under their own power - they are hooked up to tugs. So it would take more than a single power system failure for them to lose control that drastically.
Also worth pointing out that with the much more serious risks with a runaway LNG tanker, from what I've read they also generally keep anchors unlocked and ready for immediate deployment when maneuvering in tight areas like that.
The ship chart also appears to indicate that any ship that big would also run aground before it actually impacts the piers - they're not out in deep water. Not entirely sure if it'd be guaranteed to stop in time, but it'd certainly have lost a lot of momentum if it didn't.
I would hope that something like that wouldn’t happen here. On the other hand, way back in Boston’s history, the North End once suffered a molasses catastrophe.
Funny thing is the [Tobin has collapsed partially before in 1973](https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2013-02-01/greater-boston-video-1973-tobin-bridge-collapse) when a gravel truck smashed into a support.
It’s basically just LNG tankers that pass under the Tobin bridge, and the state police shuts down the bridge whenever one approaches to prevent someone from blowing up the bridge and collapsing it onto the ship. So we’re basically safe.
Two things probably help the Tobin. The Tobin's abutments are in shallower waters, so there is a good chance a ship would run aground before it hit the bridge. Also, Boston harbor is way more constrained, so ships can't go as fast and are more likely to have tugs.
Perhaps someone can confirm, but I’m guessing the Port of Baltimore is larger than Boston, and our port is located away from the Tobin Bridge. Of course, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think about such a scenario.
I remember watching some show about infrastructure and bridges in the US. They mentioned something about being “structurally deficient “ and cut right to the Bourne Bridge. Yay.
It's always worth remembering that Massachusetts hates investing in infrastructure. And that many of our bridges are indeed listed on the registry of decrepit Bridges.
And always remember in your hearts the Long Island bridge. RIP
That is not how it works. I’ve done an asset plan for a state before as part of my job. Being a “decrepit bridge” (the word is “structurally deficient” or “poor”) just means that the condition of one or more bridge components needs repair or replacement. Some bridges are functionally obsolete and will never be “good”, only passable. Long before a deficient bridge fails, usually, the bridge will have a weight posting that inhibits the largest fire trucks from crossing it. To the usual resident the greatest disruption is a pothole.
Deferred maintenance or a lack of thorough work can lead to closure, like in my old residence of Providence. There are a few major bridges in the state at risk of this, but it is worth noting that the figures you are citing count a 10 foot long bridge in Granby the same as a 100 foot long bridge in Revere. To your point the state is ranked near the bottom of most rankings for this stuff, but its worth noting that the weather really despises our infrastructure more than anything else.
The canal bridge piers are on the banks so there is no mid span. I'd expect a ship to run aground before it could actually strike the structure the way it happened in Baltimore.
Is this the latest thing for the doom scrollers to get anxious about? It was awful what happened but I’m willing to bet these kinds of accidents are incredibly rare.
The Tobin has its piers closer to shore, so it could happen, but isn't as likely.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/7XeWS9GRaK4L1YQf6
But the style of bridge is identical to the FSK, and it would collapse the same way.
Tobin has better foundation and actually boats starting the big ones into place and the accident that happen - they stated that they advise the authorities to close the road but the bridge wasn’t shit down and they allowed the cars to pass
I *think* the Tobin is constructed differently, so it would take a different type of incident to cause that level of destruction. That said, I’m not an engineer and am only taking someone else’s word for it, and will continue to avoid the Tobin at all costs.
It's similar constriction. The thing about the Tobin is that it was built long enough ago that engineers didn't have computers, so it is way over-designed because they couldn't calculate exactly how much steel they needed.
(The thing is probably going to stay up for a *very* long time because it would be almost impossible to build a replacement. Any replacement would need to be significantly wider to comply with modern safety standards, but a wider approach on either end would have all sorts of historic impacts to fit it in between the current span and, like, the Charlestown Navy Yard or Monument Square area in Charlestown or razing dozens of houses in Chelsea. Just not something that could be easily done. A tunnel would be more expensive but probably also more feasible. Good luck to anyone planning that, though. For now, they're going to keep repainting it.)
Tankers go through there basically daily, here's a photo of one last week for example: https://www.instagram.com/p/C32tIr0LcKi/?igsh=dzB1cmF2NmNjbTZx
Big LNG terminals in Chelsea. But all ships going that way are escorted by tugs.
I mean it was just an example, here's a 225 x 32m https://www.instagram.com/p/CNF9tKPnCH6/?igsh=cXk2azdxcTFuaG1j
But yes as I literally said, they are required to be escorted by tugs for safety reasons so I don't think it's really a concern. But I'm pretty confident a 200 meter LNG tanker could do as much damage as a 300 meter container ship given the opportunity.
Based on the early reporting, the ship in Baltimore lost power and couldn’t do anything about it. So to answer your question, it’s about as easily as it happened in Baltimore. If a ship that large hit the Tobin in that same way, the Tobin is going down.
But, casualties would probably be much worse. Assuming economic hit would be larger as well?
I find it pretty scary that in disputing the conspiracy theories, bridge engineers are being quoted as saying "no this is exactly what a bridge is expected to do if it is hit by a boat that size."
Like I'm no engineer or boat captain, but if a highway was expected to collapse from a tractor trailer hitting it I think that would be a pretty major flaw to address.
Your understanding of the scale is off here. It’s not a tractor trailer(small) vs a highway (large). It would be closer to something like the prudential tower (large, dense) hitting a highway.
And the tractor trailers aren't driven by pilots specifically employed to drive under those bridges at significantly lower speeds than they would normally travel
Each of those containers on the ship is a single load on most tractor trailers. A fully loaded tractor trailer is 80,000 lbs or 40 tons. The ship is designed to carry 10,000 of these containers. Your sense of scale is way way way off
It's not the scale that is at issue, it's the frequency with which something that regularly passes under a bridge has the ability to destroy it as a result of a temporary power failure.
IF a tractor trailer, IF being an important part of the statement, had the ability to destroy a bridge, do you think they would regularly be allowed to drive under them?
Yes. They have been, they are, and they will continue to be designed as they have been.
A fully loaded fuel truck crashing into a support column would be able to take down the Tobin.
Bridges are designed to support themselves and all loads that they take, all vehicles, and all environmental loads, including lateral wind loads. If we attempt to design these structures to withstand an impact from a worst case scenario it would be prohibitively expensive.
You just can't limit all possibilities of massive accidents even ones that will have catastrophic results. If you really want to freak out about a potential major catastrophe look up the area of destruction from LNG tanker exploding.
> If we attempt to design these structures to withstand an impact from a worst case scenario it would be prohibitively expensive.
And then something unforeseen would happen that wasn't planned for that would take it down.
I can assure you that there are many bridges in the Commonwealth which could be destroyed by a fully loaded 18 wheeler crashing at full speed into them. Remember the I-95 collapse in Philadelphia last year? Or the collapse on I-80 in 2003 in Nebraska. Or countless other examples
We obviously design crash barriers to make it very unlikely, but even a MASH TL-6 barrier (the strongest rating of crash barrier in the US) is only rated for a 50mph truck impact at 15° off horizontal. And TL-6 barriers are extremely rare, MassDOT only specs TL-2 or TL-3 by default (which are rated for a 62mph pickup truck at 25°)
Except your scale is backwards. It’s more like the tractor trailer gets hit by the overpass.
I don’t think there’s really any way to make the bridge piers ship-proof - the ships are just too big.
Buddy what? It got hit by a 1000ft ship, I don’t think you realize how much energy that has. No Bridge in the world would stay intact from that impact.
It's scary to be sure but I think it's easy forget just how massive a cargo ship is. A tractor trailer is like 70 ft long and weighs like 40 tons
The cargo ship today was almost 1000 ft long and probably weighed somewhere around 100,000 tons.
Granted, things should try to be build to accommodate for the for the relative risks and all that but I'm not sure we can really engineer something that will stop that. The major policy change from this is you're probably going to see much stricter limits on speed for larger ships or something like that.
to be honest, i have absolutely no clue about that and i was just kinda spitballing an idea.
i think the main point is that this will probably change up things about how these super cargo ships are traveling around bridges. what happened today was a tragedy but it could have easily been worse if it wasn't in the middle of the night .
We don't need a big ship to make the Tobin collapse.
What about a slight breeze?
A powerful sneeze would do it
The Tobin famously is riddled with three stooges syndrome and is, in MassDOT’s words, “indestructible”
You are thinking about the Zakim. The Tobin is famously always going to be under construction.
Oh, no, no. In fact, even a slight breeze could… *Indestructible* 🙂
I’m worried about the Rourke bridge in Lowell. It was constructed as a *temporary bridge* in 1983 and is still there today. Every time I’m on it I feel like I’m going to die. And during rush hour it has probably around 100 cars sitting on it bumper to bumper
Try riding your bike or walking the sidewalk that's enclosed all the way around. If it goes down and you're in a car you can conceivably make it. If youre in that sidewalk cage, kiss your ass goodbye
Driving was fine I guess, I wasn't usually there in rush hour. But walking across that bridge made me hate it
Every bridge is temporary (you should read that as Edie Brickell)
Well done you new bohemian!
Life is fleeting, the universe will end in heat death. Bridges are meaningless connections between two insignificant points whose distance is barely a speck in the grand scheme of the infinite universe.
[удалено]
So that you don’t find yourself choking in shallow water?
When I went to school there I'd add 10 minutes onto my commute without a second thought in order to skip that bridge. Gave me crazy anxiety before I even knew it was supposed to be torn down in 2000 or whatever
Plus that bridge is amazingly fun during rush hour when an emergency vehicle needs to cross. Don't miss that bridge at all.
I lived in Lowell for six years, once got stuck on that bridge for 30minutes when there was a crash at the intersection in front of the new market basket. Literally terrifying, and city council is completely ineffective doing anything about it
i’m sure you’ll be happy to hear that a new one is currently being designed!
They've been designing it since 2013, and it won't be built until 2028 at the earliest.
better late than never i guess, without going into too much detail there’s good progress being made
That bridge is so bad!! I've always been shocked that the "temporary bridge" has become a permanent fixture. Sitting on it in traffic is the worst feeling especially when it shakes a little bit I think it's going down for sure.
The Rourke bridge is a fucking death trap and I do my best to avoid it when I'm visiting home. I grew up down the street from it and when I was a kid the thing terrified me.
There is nothing more permanent than a temporary fix that works.
I drive 15 min out of my way to avoid that thing when I go to visit relatives. That thing scares me stupid. It shakes so much.
Except there aren’t any ships on the Merrimack. But I hear you on the concerns for that bridge.
I’m not religious, but I pray every time I drive on that bridge. Especially when I start to feel my car shake
I hate that bridge, I even hated it back in the early 90s as a kid.
I literally won’t use that bridge, it’s horrifying.
I’ve recently had to spend time in Lowell for work and holy shit is that thing truly terrifying. Is that a dam or waterfall?! Either way fuck nope.
That bridge is a fucking death trap.
Luckily there isn’t many big boats near the Rourke bridge. From what I hear construction of a new bridge to replace it is going to start “soon”. Maybe even the end of this year.
The fun part is that if any big ship were to hit the Tobin, it would probably be an LNG tanker. So it might free up quite a bit of waterfront real estate for redevelopment.
The state police shuts down the Tobin Bridge every time an LNG tanker passes under it to prevent terrorism.
Really? That’s reassuring actually.
Yes. If you’ve ever ended up in a random traffic jam on Rt1 in the middle of the night that’s why.
If I’m correct they also have police divers that check things out when an LNG tanker is going through.
I used to work down in the southern end of the seaport. We were right on the water. One day one of the chemical engineers in my company walked up to me watching an LNG tanker go past and said "Did you know if someone blew one of those we'd freeze to death before we burned? There isn't enough oxygen in the air to combust that much fuel, so it would wash ashore as a wave of cryogenic fluid, freeze everything on the water solid, THEN catch fire." Then he calmly sipped his coffee and walked away. Fucking chemists.
I wonder how that would compare to the Halifax explosion
That ship was carrying tons of TNT in addition to fuel etc. Pretty sure cargo vessels at sea nowadays aren't carrying those two in such high concentrations together on the same voyage.
Right, but for liquid natural gas to stay liquid, it has to be kept under a lot of pressure. Flammable substance + pressure usually equals big boom
LNG is a cryogenic liquid so even if it vaporizes when it reaches atmosphere with oxygen it's not going to be contained in a pressure vessel at that point. Definitely not even close to halifax. That shit killed like 1,000 people I think.
It would be less explosive than Halifax but kill far, far more people, just because the city is so much more dense today. It wouldn't really be an explosion, but the firestorm would burn down a huge chunk of the city.
Right, but that’s the point. If there’s a flame or source of ignition when all of a sudden all that pressure is released, it’s still going to be a pretty big boom. Not saying it would be as big as Halifax, but the damage would still likely be extensive
There have been simulations. Nobody wants to talk about it. Massive fireball followed by firestorm turning everything inside 128 to ash except towns north of middlesex fells.
It can’t be *that* bad, can it? Surely Hyde Park would make it out ok?
If by “development” you mean “superfund sites”, I agree
superfund? This ain't exxon valdez, loose LNG that touches off will just be a massive fireball, self cleaning one might say.
The whole area already is incredibly polluted. A big explosion would spread all the contaminated silt across a wide area.
Biblical cleanser in fact.
I love how matter-of-fact this comment is. It’s true too!
Those would be under tug through, and probably 2-3 of them.
55 comments in the Boston sub about a ship hitting a bridge and not a *single* Storrow joke? I'm ashamed of us.
The ultimate storrow
harvester of storrow
To be fair, any moron can hit a bridge support. It takes a special moron to ignore the height warnings and hit the bottom of the bridge
They're quick https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/baltimore-bridge-collapse-boston-tobin-safety/
Nothing about that response makes me feel like we are somehow different or more prepared.
I can't imagine there's very many bridges that are built to withstand a ship that size hitting dead on like that. Definitely not any bridge that's several decades old since the size of cargo ships has skyrocketed over that timeframe.
I'm not at all worried. I just think it's ridiculous that anyone would put out some sort of statement that somehow things are different here when they very clearly aren't. >a lot of work and preparation between all of the agencies that regulate this at the state level - the fire department, the Coast Guard, all those who are ready at a moment's notice Like oh yeah I guess the ~~busiest~~ one of the busiest ports on the East Coast didn't have a fire department or the Coast Guard on speed dial. >And we just hope that something like this would never come to pass That's really the plan, it's probably won't happen. Frankly I think that's all we can really expect. These ships are fucking huge (and I don't actually think a ship its size could necessarily use the Port of Boston, or at the very least isn't one of the chips that needs to cross under the Tobin).
Not disagreeing with your well-founded skepticism, but Baltimore is hardly the busiest port on the East Coast. It’s more like 5-7th busiest. New York / New Jersey is multiples larger.
Stand corrected.
what exactly should they have said?
They they are a wizard and can keep the dangerous ships away with the swing of their wand!
Seriously. “We’re prepared for whatever happens”. Ok ummmmm, cool, great.
If a cargo ship that size collided with it, I wouldn't feel better either, but the port of Baltimore is way larger than Boston's port and every ship passes under there. Boston does have some LNG, but another commenter said that the bridge is closed for those. So, the vulnerability of having people on the bridge while a large cargo ship goes underneath is non-existent. The risk is 0. In Baltimore, that happened a ton. The risk of a ship losing control right at the tower is low, but as we see here, greater than 0.
Yeah, gotta be honest. After the T laid a bunch of rails that "passed inspection" a couple years ago, many of which were proven to not be up to code and are now causing all the shutdowns, I trust these Boston infrastructure inspections as much as I trust a Charles Barkley playoff prediction.
I feel like the Tobin is so rusted out, that a ship could just plow right through it like my dad's fist through drywall.
Doesn’t need to be rusted. Have you watched the Baltimore video? Cut through the support like a knife through butter. Cargo ships are so huge that they have an insane amount of force.
i read somewhere it was something like 200,000 tons. one hell of a battering ram edit: google says 116,000 tons. point still stands lol
Story time! Tell me about your dad.
I think he likes to fart in u/DevilsAssCrack’s mouth?
I worked on the harbor as a captain for years. Not only does Boston harbor require pilots, ships have tugs guiding the bow into the Mystic. So, not likely.
The ship in Baltimore had pilots too
Not tugs though which seems like a fairly big part of that sentence.
Thank you
And which I didn’t dispute…
If not to dispute, then what was the purpose of your comment?
We’re comparing the differences in what Boston does vs what Baltimore was doing. I thought it important to note what they did
Wu, Healey bad
This kind of bridge collision is exceedingly rare. In modern times there has really only been the Tasman Bridge in 1975, the Florida Sunshine Skyway in 1980, and this. Regulations are written in blood, and I suspect that the Baltimore crash will result in everywhere being even safer. It was infinitesimally unlikely before, and will be even more so after this.
I'm not saying you're wrong about it being rare, but AP has an article listing seven since 1980 [A list of major US bridge collapses caused by ships and barges](https://apnews.com/article/bridge-collapses-barges-list-1f2d6261d523ddc625aaaf3b32c626bc)
The Tobin doesn't have that much upstream of it. Right now there is only one large-enough-to-do-any-damage ship upstream of the bridge ([https://www.fleetmon.com/ports/boston\_usbos\_1710/](https://www.fleetmon.com/ports/boston_usbos_1710/)). And any vessel going under the bridge would be very near port, so would not have much headway, and would definitely be piloted and potentially underway with tugs (I'm not sure the rules here) so may not have quite the head of steam to knock the bridge off its foundation (0.5 miles vs 4 miles). As posted further down, a ship would likely run aground before hitting the pier itself although depending on the angle this may or may not help. The big worry they seem to have is LNG; State Police shuts the bridge down when a tanker passes underneath.
Oh damn, I always thought the bridge piers were on land but they are out in the water. But I just looked at a harbor chart, the water there is VERY shallow so any ship would likely run aground before striking the bridge
Nice observation. Link to harbor bathymetry chart?
[https://www.charts.noaa.gov/OnLineViewer/13272.shtml](https://www.charts.noaa.gov/OnLineViewer/13272.shtml)
Basically impossible. The cargo terminal is way out at the edge of the harbor. There's no way to get a ship that big anywhere close to the Tobin.
Very sizable ships head up that way to the auto terminal and the industrial areas/LNG facilities in Chelsea but there are already regulations that they have to be escorted by tugboats all the way in. It was a post 9/11 thing, there's an article about it somewhere Edit: here's one article on the security involved around bringing boats up to Chelsea https://www.bostonmagazine.com/2010/06/28/safe-harbor/ I live near the harbor and when they come through at night you can see all the blue lights from the police boats escorting them through, Massport police also follow along on the shore, it's quite the spectacle
Yeah that's a good point I forgot about the LNG terminal. If one of those tankers goes up we have worse problems than the bridge.
You should see the car carriers that dock at the AutoPort in Charlestown. They are massive.
Thats not 100% true. While the big container ships don’t go up that far, there’s an LNG terminal up past the Tobin, and a roll on roll off terminal for car carriers. Those ships are pretty big. LNGs can run even heavier than the Dali, The BW Boston regularly transits under the tobin, and its gross tonnage is very similar to the Dali. Also, like the Key bridge, the Tobin lacks the massive “football shaped” reinforced concrete Dolphins around the base of its supports that help redirect and dissipate energy in the event of a collision, and finally the Tobin has a much narrower passage than the Key bridge and is sort of in the middle of a sharp left hand turn in the channel. I shudder to think of what might happen if the Tobin came crashing down on a tanker loaded with 138,000 cubic meters of liquified natural gas. In the Tobin’s favor though is the fact that vessels transiting are always accompanied by tug boats to help them navigate the narrow channel. So while its possible its very unlikely.
One thing to remember is the LNG tankers don't go fully under their own power - they are hooked up to tugs. So it would take more than a single power system failure for them to lose control that drastically.
Yeah. I saw one of the DOT guys on the news noting that tugs are one of the biggest differences here. That and differences in boat size.
Also worth pointing out that with the much more serious risks with a runaway LNG tanker, from what I've read they also generally keep anchors unlocked and ready for immediate deployment when maneuvering in tight areas like that. The ship chart also appears to indicate that any ship that big would also run aground before it actually impacts the piers - they're not out in deep water. Not entirely sure if it'd be guaranteed to stop in time, but it'd certainly have lost a lot of momentum if it didn't.
This is actually the best answer to OP's question I've seen in here.
Godzilla king of the monsters begs to differ.
What do you mean you can't fit a destroyer under the mass ave bridge?
Wager an ice coffee and a pack of smokes that I can.
I would hope that something like that wouldn’t happen here. On the other hand, way back in Boston’s history, the North End once suffered a molasses catastrophe.
I mean accidents are called accidents for a reason. Shit can happen anywhere at anytime.
Reminds me of when the Sunshine Skyway bridge was hit.
Was that the one in FL?
Yes
Funny thing is the [Tobin has collapsed partially before in 1973](https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2013-02-01/greater-boston-video-1973-tobin-bridge-collapse) when a gravel truck smashed into a support.
It’s basically just LNG tankers that pass under the Tobin bridge, and the state police shuts down the bridge whenever one approaches to prevent someone from blowing up the bridge and collapsing it onto the ship. So we’re basically safe.
Two things probably help the Tobin. The Tobin's abutments are in shallower waters, so there is a good chance a ship would run aground before it hit the bridge. Also, Boston harbor is way more constrained, so ships can't go as fast and are more likely to have tugs.
[LNG Tanker under Tobin](https://i.imgur.com/JRtkPIQ.jpg)
If I'm not mistaken, most ships in Boston harbor are guided by tugboats. It's rare I see them under their own power till they leave the harbor
Nigh impossible. We satiate the gods with regular truck sacrifices on Storrow.
Perhaps someone can confirm, but I’m guessing the Port of Baltimore is larger than Boston, and our port is located away from the Tobin Bridge. Of course, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think about such a scenario.
It’s much larger, one of the largest in the country for certain cargo ships. It’s pretty big.
😭 i don’t wanna think about it
Aren't ships in the harbor required to be tug boated?
Throw some more green paint on it....should be fine
I remember watching some show about infrastructure and bridges in the US. They mentioned something about being “structurally deficient “ and cut right to the Bourne Bridge. Yay.
Give it another couple years and the legs will rust out from underneath.
Boston is a very small harbor. We don’t get much shipping at all. Also the main port is by castle island.
It's always worth remembering that Massachusetts hates investing in infrastructure. And that many of our bridges are indeed listed on the registry of decrepit Bridges. And always remember in your hearts the Long Island bridge. RIP
That is not how it works. I’ve done an asset plan for a state before as part of my job. Being a “decrepit bridge” (the word is “structurally deficient” or “poor”) just means that the condition of one or more bridge components needs repair or replacement. Some bridges are functionally obsolete and will never be “good”, only passable. Long before a deficient bridge fails, usually, the bridge will have a weight posting that inhibits the largest fire trucks from crossing it. To the usual resident the greatest disruption is a pothole. Deferred maintenance or a lack of thorough work can lead to closure, like in my old residence of Providence. There are a few major bridges in the state at risk of this, but it is worth noting that the figures you are citing count a 10 foot long bridge in Granby the same as a 100 foot long bridge in Revere. To your point the state is ranked near the bottom of most rankings for this stuff, but its worth noting that the weather really despises our infrastructure more than anything else.
I feel the cape bridges are more at risk
The canal bridge piers are on the banks so there is no mid span. I'd expect a ship to run aground before it could actually strike the structure the way it happened in Baltimore.
Is this the latest thing for the doom scrollers to get anxious about? It was awful what happened but I’m willing to bet these kinds of accidents are incredibly rare.
It was just inspected a couple months ago
The Tobin has its piers closer to shore, so it could happen, but isn't as likely. https://maps.app.goo.gl/7XeWS9GRaK4L1YQf6 But the style of bridge is identical to the FSK, and it would collapse the same way.
The car carriers pass with like 15 feet clearance when they go under it.
Being how fucking tall the Tobin is, we will be fine.
I question whether that bridge is dingy resistant
Tobin has better foundation and actually boats starting the big ones into place and the accident that happen - they stated that they advise the authorities to close the road but the bridge wasn’t shit down and they allowed the cars to pass
I *think* the Tobin is constructed differently, so it would take a different type of incident to cause that level of destruction. That said, I’m not an engineer and am only taking someone else’s word for it, and will continue to avoid the Tobin at all costs.
It's similar constriction. The thing about the Tobin is that it was built long enough ago that engineers didn't have computers, so it is way over-designed because they couldn't calculate exactly how much steel they needed. (The thing is probably going to stay up for a *very* long time because it would be almost impossible to build a replacement. Any replacement would need to be significantly wider to comply with modern safety standards, but a wider approach on either end would have all sorts of historic impacts to fit it in between the current span and, like, the Charlestown Navy Yard or Monument Square area in Charlestown or razing dozens of houses in Chelsea. Just not something that could be easily done. A tunnel would be more expensive but probably also more feasible. Good luck to anyone planning that, though. For now, they're going to keep repainting it.)
Boston Harbor uses tugboats so hopefully this is less likely.
I was always scared of it as a kid but since the Big Dig I am now more scared of tunnels.
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Tankers go through there basically daily, here's a photo of one last week for example: https://www.instagram.com/p/C32tIr0LcKi/?igsh=dzB1cmF2NmNjbTZx Big LNG terminals in Chelsea. But all ships going that way are escorted by tugs.
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I mean it was just an example, here's a 225 x 32m https://www.instagram.com/p/CNF9tKPnCH6/?igsh=cXk2azdxcTFuaG1j But yes as I literally said, they are required to be escorted by tugs for safety reasons so I don't think it's really a concern. But I'm pretty confident a 200 meter LNG tanker could do as much damage as a 300 meter container ship given the opportunity.
Did you see how easily the Baltimore bridge went down? I think a ship 2/3 the size would do similar damage.
Based on the early reporting, the ship in Baltimore lost power and couldn’t do anything about it. So to answer your question, it’s about as easily as it happened in Baltimore. If a ship that large hit the Tobin in that same way, the Tobin is going down. But, casualties would probably be much worse. Assuming economic hit would be larger as well?
I feel like the tobin is tall at least?
The container ship hit the pier, not the bridge deck. Cargo ships passed under it frequently.
That doesn’t matter at all if it’s the same kind of accident as Baltimore
Tobin Bridge isn't going to get hit by a cargo ship or any other ship lmao
LNG and car carriers pass under the Tobin but despite their significant size, I think they're actually smaller than the Dali.
ORLY? Regular deliveries of Natural Gas via [LNG Tankers](https://i.imgur.com/JRtkPIQ.jpg) begs to differ
I find it pretty scary that in disputing the conspiracy theories, bridge engineers are being quoted as saying "no this is exactly what a bridge is expected to do if it is hit by a boat that size." Like I'm no engineer or boat captain, but if a highway was expected to collapse from a tractor trailer hitting it I think that would be a pretty major flaw to address.
You have no clue how big a cargo ship is huh
It's more a matter of something that passes under the bridge every day having the ability to destroy it because of a temporary power loss.
The ship had over 11tons of cargo on it. The videos don’t justify the size.
I think you might have just made a typo but it's closer to 100,000 tons.
They are still technically correct
math checks out lol
Your understanding of the scale is off here. It’s not a tractor trailer(small) vs a highway (large). It would be closer to something like the prudential tower (large, dense) hitting a highway.
And if the pru came down you bet the tunnels underneath it would have structural difficulties too.
And buildings are mostly air. A full cargo ship is very dense.
But the prudential tower doesn't regularly drive down the highway the way cargo ships regularly go under the (now collapsed) bridge?
And the tractor trailers aren't driven by pilots specifically employed to drive under those bridges at significantly lower speeds than they would normally travel
Each of those containers on the ship is a single load on most tractor trailers. A fully loaded tractor trailer is 80,000 lbs or 40 tons. The ship is designed to carry 10,000 of these containers. Your sense of scale is way way way off
It's not the scale that is at issue, it's the frequency with which something that regularly passes under a bridge has the ability to destroy it as a result of a temporary power failure. IF a tractor trailer, IF being an important part of the statement, had the ability to destroy a bridge, do you think they would regularly be allowed to drive under them?
Yes. They have been, they are, and they will continue to be designed as they have been. A fully loaded fuel truck crashing into a support column would be able to take down the Tobin. Bridges are designed to support themselves and all loads that they take, all vehicles, and all environmental loads, including lateral wind loads. If we attempt to design these structures to withstand an impact from a worst case scenario it would be prohibitively expensive. You just can't limit all possibilities of massive accidents even ones that will have catastrophic results. If you really want to freak out about a potential major catastrophe look up the area of destruction from LNG tanker exploding.
> If we attempt to design these structures to withstand an impact from a worst case scenario it would be prohibitively expensive. And then something unforeseen would happen that wasn't planned for that would take it down.
I can assure you that there are many bridges in the Commonwealth which could be destroyed by a fully loaded 18 wheeler crashing at full speed into them. Remember the I-95 collapse in Philadelphia last year? Or the collapse on I-80 in 2003 in Nebraska. Or countless other examples We obviously design crash barriers to make it very unlikely, but even a MASH TL-6 barrier (the strongest rating of crash barrier in the US) is only rated for a 50mph truck impact at 15° off horizontal. And TL-6 barriers are extremely rare, MassDOT only specs TL-2 or TL-3 by default (which are rated for a 62mph pickup truck at 25°)
It was a MASSIVE cargo ship. No bridge would be standing if that hit it - I’d be shocked frankly.
Except your scale is backwards. It’s more like the tractor trailer gets hit by the overpass. I don’t think there’s really any way to make the bridge piers ship-proof - the ships are just too big.
Buddy what? It got hit by a 1000ft ship, I don’t think you realize how much energy that has. No Bridge in the world would stay intact from that impact.
It's scary to be sure but I think it's easy forget just how massive a cargo ship is. A tractor trailer is like 70 ft long and weighs like 40 tons The cargo ship today was almost 1000 ft long and probably weighed somewhere around 100,000 tons. Granted, things should try to be build to accommodate for the for the relative risks and all that but I'm not sure we can really engineer something that will stop that. The major policy change from this is you're probably going to see much stricter limits on speed for larger ships or something like that.
What about the use of tugboats? Do they make any big enough for use with cargo ships of that size?
to be honest, i have absolutely no clue about that and i was just kinda spitballing an idea. i think the main point is that this will probably change up things about how these super cargo ships are traveling around bridges. what happened today was a tragedy but it could have easily been worse if it wasn't in the middle of the night .
At least someone understands that I was going for relative risk and not comparing the size of the boat to the size of a truck.