I also wonder if the massively expensive work that’d need to be done to lower the road could be paid for by insurance companies just wanting this to end.
It’s already changed from the 11’8" bridge to the 12’4" bridge (11’8"+8). If they add more clearance then people will just drive taller trucks into it.
The bridge has been raised by 8 inches
[checks the data]
Seven years.
Looking at Google maps, it would make sense to close the road under the bridge. There’s another intersection literally 1 block away. It would stop the madness.
In theory they could install a sewage lift station to get around that problem but depending on the size of the sewer that could be verrrrry expensive. But not impossible.
The “You will hit that bridge” one is a bit more specific than the “If you hit this sign…” one. It’s really a criticism of the “OVERHEIGHT MUST TURN” signage rather than a proposal for alternative height detection / signalling (which is where “If you hit this sign…” falls). As official adjudicator of the bingo card, I would not give credit to “You will hit this bridge” for “If you hit this sign…”.
(Thus, the one that usually comes as a twofer with “You will hit this bridge” is “The meaning of ‘OVERHEIGHT MUST TURN’ isn’t obvious.”)
Maybe I should clarify that square… version 1.4, here we come.
The intersection a block away is one-way in the other direction. If you do get right up to the bridge and have to turn, you get detoured to Buchanan, which is a bit of a schlep.
Also, Gregson is the major southbound local-road arterial through one of the the densest parts of Durham. Any sort of permanent detour would cause massive disruption. The nearest similar sized southbound road is Mangum, which is on the other side of downtown.
The SCP foundation quietly scuttles such attempts on various pretexts after discovering, in disastrous early attempts, that the 11 foot 8 bridge has the unique property of always being 11 foot 8 no matter how you attempt to change its context.
It’s not so bad when the defensive responses involve modest changes to the dimensions of structural elements of the bridge; but the time when the hyperfine transition of cesium was adjusted across the entirely of Durham such that the newly modified bridge still had a clearance of 11 feet 8 inches if measured against local physical constants really spooked people.
Researchers don’t know if there are any limits to the methods the bridge can use to restore its defined value; or how it picks from among the available ones; but it’s suspected that a local adjustment to light speed, and by implication mass/energy equivalence, would be particularly bad so people are disinclined to push the issue; and Foundation ‘contingency engineers’ are embedded at local nuclear energy facilities to provide expertise in operation under…atypical…parameters.
Why these one way streets! That’s just like St Louis! Yeah, urban planning after streets have been there for over a century is pretty tough to reroute without spending millions upon millions of dollars.
That outside beam looks pretty chewed up. One hungry bridge there.
Oh for sure. If you drive through it in Google’s Street View you can see all kinds of scrapes and exposed rebar.
t̙̱͓͌̓͗r͇̙͓̎̅̊u͉c̝͈k̘̲̖͛ͩͯ e͉̖̱͒͗̇a̙̝͖ͥ̆ͪt͙͈ͫ̏i͚̐n̅ͥg̉͆ͥ ͚̺̳ͧ̓͆ḅͪṛ̫͎ͤ̓́idg̱̖̜e ̭̥̓ͪh̺̭u̺͍̒͆n̖͋g̳e̟͇r̮̪̾͌s̓̽́
ETA:
They should install a very sharp blade 8 inches off the ground so that overheight vehicles get cut down to the size to fit under the bridge.
Maybe the trains should be able to reroute themselves on the fly
The 11’8"+8" bridge always wins.
