Engineers recommend urgent repairs on Sir Barry Bowen Bridge From walking across the bridge, one can easily view the deplorable condition of the bridge, Engineer Walker stated;
"The condition of the bridge looks very bad. In-fact, I would almost say alarming. But that's just appearance wise. The main structure of the bridge is in very good condition, however. And the amount of maintenance needed on the main structure beams and elements is pretty minimal. The problem is the deck. The deck is as you can see, very badly corroded and we'll need to be completely replaced. That's for a variety of reasons of course. This is because of the salt air but it's also because of the build up of sand that you can see on a lot of the membranes here. The sand acts like an abrasive fit. It takes off any kind of a coating that you would want to put onto the steel to protect it, and once you take off the protective coating, the rust sets in very quickly."In speaking of where the original contractor went wrong, Walker stated;
"I don't think it's the contractor that went wrong. I think it was partly myself to blame, as I was employed as the designer. We did know how severe the salt was going to be, but what we didn't predict was how badly the blowing sand was going to affect it. The sand, combined with the wheels of the golf carts and other vehicles basically stripped the coating off of the deck. And then of course once you don't have the protection on the steel then you see the rusts very quickly. There are solutions, I mean we could have gone to stainless steel but then the bridge might have been three or four times the cost it was, and it wouldn't have been affordable."
This time around, the engineer has suggested a more durable solution that is light weight, cost effective and requires minimal maintenance.
"We are looking at other materials now that will not corrode; such as hardwood and fiberglass, different types of plastics. That's what we're going to try and I think this time with a bit of thought it's going to give a much longer life." When asked whether concrete would be a feasible option, Engineer Wagner stated,
"The problem with putting a concrete deck on this bridge is the weight factor as concrete is very heavy and this bridge was never designed for that. What we want to try is to keep the solution as lightweight as possible, consistent with enough strength to take the weight of the vehicles. We are looking at fiberglass and timber at the moment." Click here for the rest of the story and more pictures in the San Pedro Sun