11 Foot 8 – The Can-opener Bridge
11foot8.com
11foot8.com
That was expensive, but after someone wedged an oversized truck into the tunnel, blocking it for three weeks, it was worth it. Gets tripped about 18 times a year.
Destroying the truck is indeed overkill though
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235214651...
I have no idea how you can be so distracted when driving that you fail to register when your truck is whacked by those height bars, but ... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
They've been driving day in day out on autopilot. Signs begin to blur after a while.
Might have been better off erecting a giant, no-tech billboard picturing a previous crash. But your projected water screen is awesome - they could buy one and play footage from these youtube videos while they wait on the red light.
Seems to me that's the idea behind the setup. You put on a long red light -- long enough that hopefully the truck driver would notice the lit up sign and realize that he need to do whatever he can to make a turn when possible. Trouble is that for some people the light would have to be 10+ minutes long before they would notice that it's still red.
Another more insistent approach I have seen elsewhere is to mount a large steel bar across the road, which takes the top of the truck off before they hit the bridge.
(edit:not very simple problem, obviously..)
Why do you think the team at the tunnel would go to such lengths and expense if there was a simple solution?
FWIW I have read about this at length generally at a local level, living and working next to a couple of bridges with this issue. A high tech approach has been tried and abandoned with these bridges as they were (fatally) not effective (though not this high-tech). I naturally assumed there was some particular reason for the tunnel.
I read the rest of the thread before I commented, the ones you point out were written after, and they do indeed go some way toward explaining that particular issue at that particular tunnel. The original post did not explain anything but the bad road design.
While we are giving friendly advice, your comments may be better received if you gave them in a spirit of generosity, as I have taken yours, rather than jumping straight to judgements and epithets.
As an aside, i work in the software industry, and here, that is absolutely not the case at all.
I've found that approaching these with the question of "what drove them to implement such a system" leads to much more enlightenment than going from the point of "they're idiots for implementing it this way."
It's more obvious in footage from the camera located on the left side of the bridge.
Only possibly worse, as I assume the explosion would have nowhere to go but down.
Still not remotely optimal but avoiding damage to the tunnel requiring far more blockage seems like a good tradeoff.
Even has its own Twitter account, because of course it does:
https://twitter.com/MontagueStBridg/status/12197515386602332...
https://twitter.com/MontagueStBridg/status/12068168482782535...
https://twitter.com/MontagueStBridg/status/11919444569053306...
It also website counting when it last was hit:
https://howmanydayssincemontaguestreetbridgehasbeenhit.com/
With full history:
https://howmanydayssincemontaguestreetbridgehasbeenhit.com/h...
It's also a bit hard to miss:
#1 - multiple big coloured signs
#2 - bright rubber things that will hit your truck and make a noise
#3 - sign, flashing lights and stripe across bridge.
It's apparently slated to be replaced, though.
Just a toilet flush mechanism to a pipe with thousands of holes spraying downwards, and a bulb, lens, and plastic film for the logo.
The bulb would be a few of those football stadium arc lamps. One kilowatt per square meter is sunlight brightness, so you're going to be needing ~10kw of lighting.
The whole system, complete with installation labor, probably $30k. Most of that is in mechanical supports for the water system.
Except, government being government, I bet this was a $10M contract awarded to someone's mate...
Great engineering on what appears to be a tough problem.
Someone found just the right use case and went for an unconventional display tech.
Love it.
I personally think things like red light with height detector or metal bars that bump into your truck and make massive amount of noise should be enough.
Water curtains with lasers projecting stop sign? That's just crazy. And we all pay for the infrastructure to save people who can't be bothered to stop before red light.
In my opinion if things like that start getting implemented this is just going to cause people to pay even less attention. Everybody should know to stop before red light.
There's an element of schadenfreude that's so compelling in watching ordinary situations go terribly wrong.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1008464/Amazing...
The road and railroad were only closed for 4 days, but it's clear that if the truck in this incident had a bit more momentum, the bridge could have been removed entirely.
I mean if you think like a rational person, a big "LOW BRIDGE" sign with blinking lights should be blatantly obvious, but it's not.
a) The bridge has been hit tons of times, and I don't think anyone in a train has been hurt yet.
b) The bridge is probably a lot stronger than the truck, so while the bridge may take damage and need to be repaired, the damage is probably not enough to harm train traffic.
c) If the bridge is damaged enough to harm train traffic, there's probably not a train coming immediately; any on-route trains can be likely stopped before they reach the bridge.
A factory 2020 F-150 4x4 is 6'5" from the factory[1]
So I think you have you underestimation of the size of a truck. A common Lift would be 4in, and can go to 8in.
Your attempting to paint a picture of a "redneck" truck would be be a fully lifted, when lifting the truck you would then also add larger tires that would further lift the truck
So a Fully Lifted F-150 "Redneck" truck could be closer to 7'6" to 8' if not taller
[1]https://media.ford.com/content/dam/fordmedia/North%20America...
Rating truck/bridge interactions has become a bit of a past time on universalhub:
https://www.universalhub.com/storrow
Every year when college students move back in and out, the powers that be put up illuminated construction signs everywhere to try to keep the number of rental trucks on roads they shouldn't be to a minimum. They're mostly successful.
I suspect if it hasn’t happened yet a decent commercial software solution would be to produce an app that took OSM and overlay all of the bridges with clearances in major cities into it so that you could route around them after entering your height. I specifically remember doing a lot of reversing back up streets in Chicago because nothing like that existed at the time (this was in the early 2010s).
at the end of the it seems most of the trucks are often Rental Trucks drive by people that likely should not be driving a large truck in the first place. In the US you do not need a CDL or special endorsement to rent many of these UHaul type trucks since they do not have Air Brakes, all you need is a normal operators license.
Then again, maybe a large portion of the crashes are from people who forget they're driving a truck, so that might just make the carnage worse...
ON THE ROAD TO SUCCESS,
THERE ARE NO SHORTCUTS.
It doesn't even look like a very low bridge. Why do people approach it without a care in the world at full speed?
My vehicle is only 2m tall and I still do take a quick look at height signs as I approach them.
What's so special about this bridge that means it gets so much coverage. It doesn't even seem extremely low.
> It was designed in the 1920s, and opened in 1940, with a clearance for vehicles of 11 feet 8 inches (3.56 m). This was a standard height at the time it opened. The standard clearance, since 1973, has a minimum height of 14 feet (4.3 m), which is 2 feet 4 inches (0.71 m) higher than the bridge as built.
I imagine most trucks are built to be just under 14 feet so that fitting under bridges is not usually an issue.
Another thing I’ve noticed watching some of these videos is that most of the accidents are rental trucks. Presumably many of these drivers have never driven a truck in their lives and ignore clearance warnings out of habit.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norfolk_Southern–Gregson_Stree...
A typical driver of a car, minivan or SUV in the United States will virtually never encounter a bridge or other obstacle whose height above the road is low enough to matter to them, so most people simply never have a reason to pay attention to those height signs.
That, and it's really pretty common for people to not pay much attention to road signs. For example, in my neighborhood, there are quite a few intersections with "no turn on red" signs posted. And it's a regular occurrence for people behind me to lay on the horn in a rather distressed manner when I'm first in line, and choosing to obey traffic laws. I live on a street with no outlet, and my kids just love watch lawn care companies that have gotten themselves stranded from the living room windows. It would appear to be a tad bit difficult to back your way straight down a full city block when there's a 15 foot trailer hitched to your extended cab pickup truck.
For what it's worth, I used to work about a block away from a completely different underpass that was also old and had a very low clearance. And I suspect that the only real reason why that one isn't similarly famous is that none of us ever thought to set up a webcam.
Interstates are controlled by the Federal Highway Commission and must meet Federal Highway standards as the federal government generally pays for them
State Routes are controlled by State Regulations
County Routes are controlled by County Regulations
City Routes are controlled by City Regulations
There is zero standard that is applied universally. This is is viewed by some as a negative personally I prefer the federalist system over a central authority
Most State and Federal routes do have Minimum Heights, though exceptions can be made, one thing we often see in the US not remeasuring the surface, there have been more than a few time where the height is reported as X but that measurement was decades old and several resurfacing layers had been added to the real height is lower. Or the road pitches to one side and someone measured the highest side not the low side
Then Google Maps sent us into New York. We saw something about all trucks take some other road, but stuck with the route Google recommended. Then we saw a big "All trucks over X height take next right" sign and the height was like 2 feet lower than our truck.
That started a whole separate adventure, but while there may be some kind of safe route thing in the US, there are plenty of routes that vary from state to state, and at least back then google maps didn't have a way to enter the height of your vehicle.
And of course, Texas has bigger clearances, because Texas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_standards
edit Looks like Texas may have consulted with the Army's Transportation Engineering Agency for design input, as it's mentioned in their design standard manual
http://onlinemanuals.txdot.gov/txdotmanuals/rdw/freeways.htm...
The roads that have these low clearances are usually local roads whose right-of-way was constrained a hundred years ago, or "parkways" originally devised to permit motorists to enjoy scenic drives and unencumbered by heavy truck traffic (possibly also built 100 years ago!).
Edit: like this https://www.jpsiteexperts.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/cle...
(EDIT: in addition, a hanging warning sign would have to be suspended from something. My guess is any such structure would need to be made very sturdy and expensive, or else it would just get knocked down and increase the hazard to pedestrians and property when somebody hits the sign at significant speed.)
Placing the obstacle anywhere else would impede vehicles that aren't trying to go under the bridge.
edit: okay. Now they have a sign. With white lettering. In a location where we know from years of experience drivers aren't looking. This makes no sense to me. Everything about this is bad design.
I mean I get it. It's funny. But if it were designed well, there wouldn't have been 100+ accidents.
In addition, the illuminated "OVERHEIGHT MUST TURN" sign flashes to attract attention.
I get what you're trying to say, but this bridge is better-marked than the vast majority of road hazards one might encounter. There's a certain point beyond which it doesn't make sense to keep spending time and money protecting people from themselves.
They are the ones who end up paying, not the railroad that owns the bridge.
It's possible that, short of removing and replacing the bridge (which would have its own consequences, since it serves an active rail line in a major city), the only thing that would actually help much is getting stricter about what size of vehicle people are allowed to operate without special training and a special class of license.
> Can’t the road be lowered?
> That would be prohibitively expensive because a sewer main runs just a few feet below the road bed. That sewer main also dates back about a hundred years and, again, at the time there were no real standards for minimum clearance for railroad underpasses.
The rental truck depot up the road contribute to the problem. In theory this could be relocated but this has to have a cost greater than the loss of a few rental truck tops.
There is a road junction next to the bridge meaning the parallel road limits the options for slowing down tall vehicles before the bridge.
Thus far in this comment thread your comment has been the only one that sheds some light on the situation.
Geometry bites.
The bridge is located in a kinda odd space to do construction. While I imagine it's possible to retrofit or dig it to be deeper, it likely would have been really inconvenient to the adjacent businesses.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9hbbbr1xl53e8u3/77EFF5A4-D593-4FB8...
Random weekend movers peeling the tops off your fleet.
I'd have free-take-one warning maps with a big red X at the checkout counter.
I briefly worked for a Budget in Canada once upon a time and they always reminded people not to take the truck through a drive thru.
They ended up raising the bridge 8".
One would think they would've looked more closely at the traffic on that road and adjusted it accordingly.
It's also really silly to have a sign indicating that too large vehicles must turn, which most drivers won't read/see in time, and practically force them to crash into the bridge, instead of having some sort of 'bumpers' ahead of the bridge for those vehicles to bump into first (I've seen those at entrances of parking lots that have both above ground and underground parking).
When the sign activates, it also causes the traffic light to turn red. In theory, that provides plenty of time to notice and respond to the sign; in practice, collisions still happen because people just run the red light.
If someone's sufficiently determined to do something stupid and reckless, there's only so much you can do to discourage them.
> instead of having some sort of 'bumpers' ahead of the bridge for those vehicles to bump into first
That's what the big yellow beam is; it was installed to protect the bridge. If something was installed farther away (i.e. before the intersection) it would get in the way of large vehicles that were intending to turn before the bridge.
I hate red light runners with a serious passion.
Yes, that one protects the bridge - what I'm talking about is a 'warning' bumper, that you can run into, but won't damage the vehicle (as others' comments here have mentioned). It would be put up further up ahead of the bridge itself (not at the bridge). Something like this:
https://www.cisco-eagle.com/catalog/product/157494/garage-lo...
And those bumpers might not cause structural damage, but I'm sure you wouldn't want random plastic objects scraping across your roof when you drive, right?
Why, yes, a 9 foot pole would get run over by a 13 foot truck. There's a reason I used the words "something like..." and not "exactly this..."
> but I'm sure you wouldn't want random plastic objects scraping across your roof when you drive, right?
Again - it's used as a WARNING SYSTEM - you prefer returning the truck with a torn off roof, or a still-fully functional one with just some extra minor scrapes?
The casualty of that solution might be buses (as others pointed out this road is also being used for), but the city can make exceptions for those (as is usual in most places due to stops being commonly in the right turn lane).
It's clear from the massive number of videos, and of various types of drivers (truck rentals, furniture delivery trucks, campers, etc.) that the current "system" they have is inadequate to avoid these crashes. "It just doesn't work". Just blaming the driver only isn't a solution (I actually wonder if the city/railroad has ever been sued because of this).
That is already what is set up. All trucks must turn before going under the bridge.
Except people ignore that and go straight anyway.
People are human and they make mistakes all the time. That's why simple, clear signage helps. Why wayfaring is a science. Why packaging is difficult.
But the bridge is signed, isn't it?
It doesn't seem an abnormally low bridge in the first place.
Perhaps the simplest solution is to introduce a light hanging (eg rubber) plate to make the underpass appear even shorter so people do stop and look at the signs.
> But the bridge is signed, isn't it?
But is it done clearly?
What more do you really think they should do?
Why is anyone driving underneath a bridge without carefully checking the height.
If the height isn't clear, why don't people stop rather than just ploughing into it.
How could you possibly miss it??? I mean, it was right there in front of you!
I mean, it doesn’t matter that it “blended in” and wasn’t easily visible, and has no handrail, it was still right there.
It's a MASSIVE bridge, right in front of your face, and bright yellow warning bar.
The basic assumption people make is that the roads they know or that are indicated by their navigator are the roads that they can drive on. I don't recall even if my navigator has a way of setting the vehicle height, I should check that.
I've done a lot of driving, some of it boxtrucks and larger and when you switch vehicles it is a thing that you need to remind yourself of constantly. The easiest solution would be to dig that road out to standard depth, the next best would be to drop it from all navigation systems so that at least people that do not know about it won't try to use it.
Must be different locations being different.
But where I'm from you couldn't remotely just drive regardless of your vehicle height. You'd smash into something within minutes.
But - and this is the crucial bit - the main distinguishing factor between what is a truck and what counts as a van is different in Europe than in the US/Canada. In the US/Canada on my normal 'lightweight' license I can drive a 10 ton truck, in Europe I'm limited to 3500 KG which puts an automatic limit on the size vehicle, a typical sprinter or boxvan would not be higher than 3.5 meters and everybody else will need a class 'C' driving license at a minimum and once you pass that you shouldn't need to be taught about vehicle height any more. There is a loophole called a BE trailer but those are very rare and the people that drive them tend to know their limitations.
Even so there are plenty of professional drivers in those crash videos that fall for it just the same. I'll give the rental van drivers a pass as long as they cross on the green light and they're only a few inches high. Usually the height of the truck will vary by that much just based on acceleration / deceleration and angle of the 5th wheel hitch if it has one as well as the angle of the road approaching the barrier and the length of the vehicle. If you measure the vehicle while stationary on flat ground you might think you can get away with it when you really can't.
When our son was very young (< 2 years old), my girlfriend/wife was usually the one to take him to daycare in the morning. Occasionally she would have to leave for work early or was running late and would ask me to take him instead. This seemed to me to be a perfect storm to have him left behind in the car when I went to work: not used to having him there, I might drive directly to work "on autopilot" and get out and leave him asleep in his car seat.
I often wondered if this was at the heart of kids being left in hot cars.
Anyway, I forced myself to get into the habit of always turning around and checking that the car seat was empty before getting out the car, every single time, just in case.
Of course, it never happened, but I can see how easy it is to forget stuff like this when you're simply not used to doing it.
1. Most people would correctly expect that road-approved vehicles would clear all bridges.
2. This one is literally a couple of inches out for clearance; it looks like the truck is 12ft (or whatever the current bridge height is), which is probably what the truck's height indication is. It's not unreasonable for the driver to expect to clear the bridge even knowing the height of both, especially if they match closely.
3. The bridge was recently lifted to its current height - if this is a 'local' driver, they probably expect all vehicles to clear it now, knowing it got lifted.
Oh right ok that's it - in my country you absolutely can't assume this so everyone is careful at all low-looking bridges.
They didn't raise it only eight inches because they simply felt like it and picked a number out of their hat - eight inches was the most they could do without also impacting a nearby level crossing. Ballasting plain track up to a higher level can be done relatively easily (up to a certain extent of course), whereas touching the level crossing requires more work and also creates problems with the road geometry there:
If you raise the track across the level crossing too much, you create a nice little hump on which long vehicles can now get stuck, which isn't what you'd want, either. Fixing that in turn means rebuilding an even more considerable section of the crossing street, with all that that entails...