You are missing the point that I am making.
If the pier protection buffers had been in place from the beginning of the use of this bridge, then the ship would have been diverted away from the bridge pier and would not have hit the pier to cause the bridge to collapse. The issue was not the cargo vessel hitting the pier, the vessel hit the pier because there was no protection for the bridge pier and the bridge would not have collapsed.
The bridge was necessary for hazardous materials to cross over Chesapeake Bay as hazardous material cannot be transported through the tunnels that pass under the bay.
The construction companies who quoted on the construction were much more expensive that the engineering cost estimates and as such cost cutting was employed to enable the bridge to be built with the intention of later building the bridge's approaches etc to comply with the original design.
A short history of the bridge.
In the 1960s, the Maryland State Roads Commission concluded a need for a second harbor crossing after the earlier Baltimore Harbor Thruway and Tunnel opened in 1957. They began planning another single-tube tunnel under the Patapsco River, further to the southeast, downstream from the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel. The proposed site was between Hawkins Point and Sollers Point in the outer harbor. Plans also were under way for a drawbridge to the south over Curtis Creek, replacing an earlier 1931 drawbridge carrying Pennington Avenue over the creek, to connect Hawkins Point to Sollers Point. Extra capacity was provided by what is now known as the Fort McHenry Tunnel, a four-tube facility running under and curving around historic Fort McHenry, that opened in 1985.
The project was financed by a $220 million bond issue (equivalent to $1.9 billion in 2023) alongside the twinning of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in October 1968. Bids for constructing the proposed Outer Harbor Tunnel were opened in July 1970, but price proposals were substantially higher than the engineering estimates. Officials drafted alternative plans, including a four-lane bridge, which the General Assembly approved in April 1971.
A bridge would provide a route across the Baltimore Harbor for vehicles transporting hazardous materials, which are prohibited from both the Baltimore Harbor and Fort McHenry tunnels. The United States Coast Guard issued its bridge permit in June 1972, replacing an earlier approval of the tunnel from the Army Corps of Engineers. Construction of the Outer Harbor Bridge began in 1972, several years behind schedule and $33 million over budget.
Baltimore engineering firm J. E. Greiner Company was selected as the primary design consultant, with only the side approaches being handled by New York City's Singstad, Kehart, November & Hurka in joint venture with Baltimore Transportation Associates, Inc. Construction was performed by the John F. Beasley Construction Company with material fabricated by the Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel Co.
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Operation
The Key Bridge opened to traffic on March 23, 1977. Including its connecting approaches, the bridge project was 1.6 miles (2.57 km) in length with 8.7 miles (14.00 km) of approach road. In 1978, the bridge received an Award of Merit from the American Institute of Steel Construction in the Long Span category. A few months after the 1980 Sunshine Skyway Bridge collapse, a cargo ship collided with the Key Bridge, but the bridge was relatively undamaged.
The bridge opened with four lanes, but its approaches were two lanes to reduce costs. The south approach was widened in 1983. A project for the north approach was completed in 1999 after several years of delays.
Link: - Francis Scott Key Bridge (Baltimore) - Wikipedia
The March 26 2024 collision of a vessel with the bridge was the second such occurrence of a collision with the bridge. The collision of a vessel with the bridge in 1980 was a relatively minor incidence but the incident in 1980 did not trigger a response from the appropriate authorities to construct bridge pier safety buffers to stop a second possible collision. The second incident was catastrophic and was preventable.
I rest my case.
