College of Engineers and Arquitects Want A Declaration Of A State of Emergency Over Bridge Situation
September 30th, 2009 | by admin |The Colegio Federado de Ingenieros y de Arquitectos (CFIA) is calling on the government to declare a national emergency over the state of the nation’s bridges and is asking the presidential candidates to include the subject in their works projects.
The call comes after an intensive study completed by the CFIA on the state of the bridges in the country, this after the debacle over the “platina” situation on the Virilla bridge.
You remember, the bridge that paralyzed the Central Valley on three separate occasions when work on the bridge closed the East-West route of the General Cañas for more than 48 hours on each occasion. And the bridge that still sports a 10cm gap between its spans.
The CFIA is using the Virilla as an indicator of the situation that is common on many bridges around the country, mainly due to the lack of maintenance by this and previous governments, where bridges are left to deteriorate, while vehicular traffic passing over them has greatly increased.
The board of directors of the CFIA is asking that this government and future governments make bridge maintenance and repair a priority and only by declaring a national emergency will the problem be taken seriously.
The CFIA claim is supported by a study of the Laboratorio Nacional de Materiales y Modelos Estructurales (Lanamme) and to take the dust off the study done by the Agencia de Cooperación Japonesa (Jaica), with the idea that that the Dirección de Puentes del Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes (MOPT) use the document as a basis for planning their maintenance and rehabilitation work.
The CFIA will be also looking to make the bridge situation an issue in the upcoming presidential elections.
