Anderson Ave Bridge: 1, Budget Truck: 0

[giza]

The bridge on Anderson Ave in Ardmore, PA strikes again! I wish I would say that this is the first time I saw a truck get stuck on this particular bridge, but... it's not.

See that sign on the bridge? The one that says, "CLEARANCE 10'6""? They mean it. Especially when you're driving a 10'8" Budget truck!

Let this be a learning experience:



More pics are available over here.

Comments

[simbab.livejournal.com]

There is a similar bridge on the Onondaga Lake Parkway. From both I-81 and Oswego Street, and for several miles before the actual bridge, there are large, blinking, flashing, brightly-colored signs saying "ALL TRACTOR-TRAILERS USE OLD LIVERPOOL ROAD". Yet the FD gets called to that bridge at least once or twice a month for a stuck semi.

[furahi.livejournal.com]

I've seen some tunnels/bridges that have chains hanging before the actual bridge at the right height, so you will *hear* that you will hit before you actually do.

[boomeroo.livejournal.com]

There's a fairly notorious pic floating around the internet that shows a sign on a chain over a roadway that says 'If you hit this sign, you will hit that bridge!' I drive a truck for work every day, and it always makes me laugh.

[furahi.livejournal.com]

LOL ^^

[boomeroo.livejournal.com]

It's usually closer to 'destroyed' than 'stuck', since the speed limit on that roadway is 55mph. This past summer, one truck managed to get all the way thru to the other side. We were all rather surprised.

Oh, and sorry for going all comment whore on your entry here, Giza. For some reason this is greatly amusing me.

This time, I will let my icon do the talking.

[furahi.livejournal.com]

[kreggan.livejournal.com]

I wonder if you could just let the tyres down a bit...

[boomeroo.livejournal.com]

For that situation, that's probably what they'd do, since it's a matter of the truck being 2" taller than the bridge. The bridge Simbab speaks of here is marked 10'6", but budget trucks and such can get under it...the bridge is purposely marked too low. However, as he said, my fire dept gets called out frequently for collisions. Thankfully, it's a freight railroad line bridge that's built strong as hell. They'd raise it, but it's immediately turns and runs along the lakeshore. Doing so would require them to lengthen the arc of the turn, and essentially put the tracks out on the lake. The cheaper alternative is to reroute traffic thru the village, which 99.9% of the time works fine.

[taral.livejournal.com]

There's a picture of the tires in the photostream. That's exactly what they do -- but it's more than a bit!

[susandeer.livejournal.com]

Naw! They was just deliverin' an overpass and ran outta gas!

[stahi.livejournal.com]

Heeeere's your sign.

[susandeer.livejournal.com]

*high5!*

[stahi.livejournal.com]

I hate delivering to anywhere on US 30 off of I-476, especially west towards Wayne, Berwyn, etc. The smallest truck we have is 10'7" and I'll see signs for 9"10", 10'1", etc. A few weeks ago we were in Wayne, and that damn nature-bike trail kept messing us up with a bridge that at first was 12'1" which we ALMOST made it under, and probably would've if the road remained straight.

Had to keep going down and saw bridges for 11'5", 10'4", etc. x.x Managed to get to the end of the trail and come around. But yeah, that area of PA = Sucks when it comes to trucks.

[giza.livejournal.com]

Blame Amtrak and their stupid tracks.

They're doing this big renovation on that section of track that's taking months and months and impacting the train schedules. Think they can bother to do anything about the bridges? Nah.

[triggur.livejournal.com]

If you can't raise the bridge, you lower the road :)

[giza.livejournal.com]

Only problem there is that the road on the other side of that bridge goes up a short hill to a stoplight. Lowering the road under the bridge even more would cause the hill to become steeper, and that would cause us other problems. (I'm thinking icy conditions during winter here)

I can take some pictures of the layout during daylight hours if what I just described isn't clear.

[triggur.livejournal.com]

Nah. Just chalk another one up to poor infrastructure design.

[giza.livejournal.com]

Not true.

We have no design here.

Seriously, Lower Merion doesn't have a comprehensive plan. This sort of fuckwittery by our elected officials basically results in jumping from stupid idea to stupid idea. This in part led to the attempted eminent domain takeover of businesses here a few years ago. (And the sullying of some careers of those who proposed/backed it)

[triggur.livejournal.com]

It's still an engineering failure, not the politicians' failures; no politician designs bridges or roadway; the politician says "put a bridge there and here's the money to do it," he doesn't get involved with silly decisions like "I bet we can get away with making this one only 10'6".

[giza.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see what you're saying.

The other thing to keep in mind is that the railroad tracks on top of the bridge have probably been around since the mid-1800's, when it was still known as the Pennsylvania Railroad. We really didn't have trucks back then.

I'm not an engineer, but I'm assuming there is no way to easily raise the bridge without doing a crapload of additional work on the tracks, otherwise it'd have been done by now. (Someone correct me if I am wrong...)

Now, could the township have done a better job at pointing out that that specific bridge was lower, and that there is an alternate bridge just one block away on Woodside Ave.? Probably.

[triggur.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's the ongoing infrastructure investment issue. Though I'll wager that the bridge has been built and rebuilt several times since then, but that's here nor there.

Of course it's also entirely possible (since this is the east coast we're talking about) that there was $10M allocated to building a 14 foot clearance bridge, and the construction company told the engineer that if he lowers the specs, they'll slip him a portion of the saved money...

[giza.livejournal.com]

Possible, more like probable!

I trust you heard about the whole "pay to play" scandal that went on in Philly. There is no doubt in my mind that money in this area hasn't illicitly changed hands in other ways as well.

[triggur.livejournal.com]

Nothing would surprise me any more.

As far as I'm concerned the entirety of the north east is a gigantic, filthy, polluted, corrupt, mafia-infested shithole.

:)

[antimon.livejournal.com]

hope eh bought the insurance

[unclekage.livejournal.com]

It won't help. Truck rental companies now specifically warn you that topside damage is not covered by any insurance. They make certain to drill that into my head every time I pick up Anthrocon's truck. "You are responsible for any damage to the roof of the truck. Insurance will NOT cover it."

[antimon.livejournal.com]

well you did have that little camera incident.... :)

[triggur.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I bet there's a market for in-truck GPS navigator products in rental trucks that route you around low bridges and such... Hmmmmmmmm...

[felix-carni.livejournal.com]

The driver probably saw the sign but knew there weren't any cops around so he went for it :P

[triggur.livejournal.com]

More than likely the driver is just an average Joe not used to driving trucks and pre-occupied by his move logistics instead of the road. It happens all the time.

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

One time I was driving along the I-10 freeway feeder, heading west towards Katy, and a few yards after I passed a sign warning NO TRUCKS IN U TURN LANE, I saw a truck in the U-turn lane, stuck under the overpass, at an angle (tipping over to the side). It might have fallen over if it weren't wedged in there! There was a cop on the scene, of course.

[doco.livejournal.com]

Uh... okay? They put up a single, unlit sign on the bridge and think that's it?

Where's the red and white checkered bars on the bridge? Where's the "Low bridge ahead" sign? Why is the sign placed atop the bridge and not, like, next to it where it could be, uh, read? :P

If this really is a dangerously low bridge, it's the most poorly signposted low bridge I've ever seen.

[giza.livejournal.com]

> Uh... okay? They put up a single, unlit sign on the bridge
> and think that's it?

Yes. That's normal for bridges over here. All of them.

> Where's the red and white checkered bars on the bridge

The what? Anyway, it's not obvious in that picture since it's a night exposure, but the front of the steel roof that the truck is caught on does have a bright neon yellow painting on it. It's hard to miss.

> Why is the sign placed atop the bridge and not, like, next to
> it where it could be, uh, read? :P

No idea. All I can tell you is that bridges over here have the signs above them. So it's not like the driver could have missed it, he only needed to look up a little.

[amurussuri.livejournal.com]

Seems that drivers tend do underestimate the size of their ... anyway, happens on a more regular basis here in Berlin, too. Most recently .. yesterday, actually: http://www.morgenpost.de/desk/1457054.html

[unclekage.livejournal.com]

This is why there is a gigantic steel girder painted bright yellow across the entrance of the old stone railroad bridge on Warren Ave. in Malvern. I always get a chuckle when I see paint scraped off of its face.

[silaria.livejournal.com]

We have similar issues around Pittsburgh too. Big trucks get stuck in the Fort Pitt or Squirrel Hill Tunnels at least 4 or 5 times a year. (We are lucky it doesn't happen more often.)

They are signs that warn of the hight restriction for a mile leading up to the tunnels and cameras that read the truck hight and, if over-hight, flash a "Truck Over Hight Limit" message all the way down the hill and the drivers STILL get stuck. Those that don't leave nice scraps on the ceiling tiles.

[snowhusky01.livejournal.com]

this happened around here just recently as well. A little bridge about a block away from me and what's funny is, it was also a budget truck

[triggur.livejournal.com]

The best "truck hit the bridge" story of all time:

[nbowa.livejournal.com]

These are always the stories the people at the rental place talk about... "If they would have gotten insurance, they would have saved $10,000". All for a low cost of $50 a day or whatever :P

[nbowa.livejournal.com]

You can't insure stupidity.... :P

[wildw0lf.livejournal.com]

So how exactly, did they get it out of there?