{"id":215,"date":"2006-03-29T06:26:35","date_gmt":"2006-03-29T06:26:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/65.175.102.14\/?p=215"},"modified":"2011-11-26T06:27:35","modified_gmt":"2011-11-26T06:27:35","slug":"the-ol-fixer-upper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/?p=215","title":{"rendered":"The ol&#8217; fixer-upper"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0pt none;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/bridge_work1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" border=\"0\" \/><\/center>If you&#8217;ve driven past the Liberty Memorial Bridge lately I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;ve seen these scaffolds stuck to the side of two of the support columns. Work continues to put a steel liner around the two trouble spots and fill the gaps with a special concrete.<\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0pt none;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/bridge_work2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" border=\"0\" \/><\/center>It looks like one of them is completed and the other one under wraps in these photos, which I took this weekend. I bet it&#8217;s cold working up there&#8230;that&#8217;s likely why they&#8217;ve wrapped the area where concrete is to be poured, to let it set properly.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s weird about being near the bridge when it&#8217;s closed is that it&#8217;s eerily quiet in the absence of traffic. The only sound is the constant cooing of all those darn pigeons. That in itself is kinda spooky&#8230;what if they decide to revolt?<\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0pt none;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/bridge_work3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"334\" border=\"0\" \/><\/center>While they&#8217;re at it&#8230;shouldn&#8217;t they take a look at some of this stuff? I mean, if the rest of the undercarriage of this bridge has broken rebar and crumbling concrete&#8230;do we really want to reopen it? That&#8217;s kinda scary.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve all had a taste of what life will be like while the bridge&#8217;s replacement is built&#8230;it&#8217;s not fun. Hopefully, once the construction on a new bridge gets underway, the process of building a new one will go quickly.<\/p>\n<p>Some people think this bridge is just fine the way it is, and should simply be properly maintained. Others want it scrapped in favor of a new and better one. Then there&#8217;s the shock and awe brought about by its deterioration. And of course those who want it preserved as a historical item.<\/p>\n<p>Personally, I think the historic appeal of this bridge died when they decided to put a concrete deck on the famous &#8220;singing bridge.&#8221; Now that it appears to be rusting and crumbling away, let&#8217;s replace it. But let&#8217;s do so responsibly. And I sure hope the next design lasts as long as this one has!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;ve driven past the Liberty Memorial Bridge lately I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;ve seen these scaffolds stuck to the side of two of the support columns. Work continues to put a steel liner around the two trouble spots and fill the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/?p=215\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-around-bismarck-mandan","category-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions\/216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}