True North

The London Bridge may — or may not — be sinking into the soft sands of the Thames, but one thing is for certain. When bent gusset plates were found on the steel-truss DeSoto Bridge in St. Cloud, a bridge similar in design to the ill-fated I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, it was closed indefinitely and traffic mostly rerouted to the Veterans Bridge.

Local, state and maybe even federal governments are wringing their hands to solve the problem this creates, but are they the best source of a solution?

While one hopes that the Veterans Bridge will withstand the added stress, one also wonders about long-range bridge planning in this area, and how much flexibility there is to "bridge" us through such uncertainties. Additional time spent in traffic is time not spent productively at work, with family or in other activities.

A third nearby bridge, the University Bridge, was restricted to two lanes when built because of long-standing East Side aesthetic concerns and neighborhood pressures. Perhaps as a result, development of St. Cloud is uneven. According to ZipSkinny.com, less than 16,000 people (or 23 percent of population) live on the east side of the river (in ZIP code 56304.)Now, with traffic counts rising, the St. Cloud City Council just voted to speed up widening this bridge to four lanes in 2010. It did so to get matching dollars. The city has already brought in additional light signals on the east side of the bridge due to increased traffic.It appears two principles are being applied by the city to deal with the DeSoto Bridge.First, city officials have called for the state-owned bridge to be replaced as soon as possible. Second, do not close two bridges at the same time.The matching money for the University Bridge is an example of bad earmarking. We can't transfer money earmarked for University Bridge to DeSoto Bridge. It may have been a good idea to widen University Bridge back in 2007, but it now will cause violation of one of the principles.I heard recently Mayor Dave Kleis say we will have to widen that bridge to four lanes because you can't get money for a new bridge south of town (where it seems needed) until all bridges are four lanes.It's becoming a Catch-22 of nightmarish rules and regulations, government hamstringing and crippling our ability to react to random misfortunes. No matter how well-intentioned our plans and our planning commissions, one untoward event can create a chain of unintended consequences.But why not a toll bridge?One can imagine, for instance, a private bridge and charging a toll to cross the river thus adding flexibility to the system. There are toll lanes in the Twin Cities.Or perhaps the market would examine the feasibility of a ferry system? I do not think this would work due to the width of river and winter ice, but maybe someone would find a solution.According to the magazine Fast Co., there are several examples of privatized roads and bridges, including the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, or the Indiana Toll Road. Often these are sold to raise money for government budgets. But it could also be used to harness new solutions to transportation problems such as where and how to build bridges.When the government rules the bridge decisions, it must operate on one principle: How do I operate this without harming anyone politically? The government must always err on side of caution, sometimes to the extreme.As in many other cases, government makes policy when scientific information is incomplete, and so it uses a "precautionary principle." Unless you can prove the DeSoto Bridge is safe, you have to close it, regardless of the costs incurred on St. Cloud residents. "One death is too much," it will argue.Private firms, however, make decisions on costs and benefits, which can be more rational than government-made positions.This is the opinion of Barbara Banaian, a professional pianist who lives in the St. Cloud area. Her column is published the first Friday of the month.Posted form the St. Cloud Times Online.