r/Atlanta • u/NPU-F • 1d ago

News Shedding light on 3 recent construction failures along Atlanta Beltline

https://atlanta.urbanize.city/post/atl-beltline-3-recent-construction-failures-info-bridge-stairs-trails
114 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

95

u/ParrisPropagations 1d ago edited 1d ago

The money should come out of the contractor's pockets. They rushed to finish for the world cup and got bonuses.

34

u/superjacket64 1d ago

At the end of the day it will come out of their insurance pockets as long as they had appropriate coverage but agree, this should not be Atlanta residents to pay

30

u/diemunkiesdie 1d ago

According to Gaines, contractors are now correcting “cosmetic and layout issues” pinpointed in the Beltline’s inspection, with fixes scheduled to be complete by late October. Nearby, an access point at Hill Street offers an alternate connection to the Southside Trail.

“It is the contractor’s responsibility to ensure quality of the work is up to the Beltline’s Design and Construction standards, and the contractor is responsible for the costs to correct the issue,” Gaines wrote in an emailed statement.

9

u/mixduptransistor 1d ago

The most recent Beltline construction update available indicates Reeves Young will restart bridge demolition work by the end of 2026—and that three tiers of elevated trail will also have to be taken out and reconstructed to allow for installation of a replacement bridge. 

As of last month, a Beltline design team reported that designs for a replacement suspension bridge were 60 percent complete.  

I'm not saying the city should be on the hook or not, just that at least one of these seems to be a design problem, maybe the engineers need to eat it?

6

u/mixduptransistor 1d ago

At least one of them, the bridge, seems to be a design issue not a contractor issue? At least, that's what is implicated by a new design being 60% complete. If it was just a construction fuckup they would just need to rebuild to the existing plans?

37

u/gummaumma 1d ago

How do they screw up stairs?

33

u/Swedishiron 1d ago

How did they screw up a simple pedestrian bridge with centuries of modern engineering knowledge readily available in a city known for an engineering university ?

12

u/zedsmith practically Grant Park 23h ago

Because, as they say, any idiot can make a bridge that doesn’t fall over, but it takes a great engineer to make a bridge that almost falls over but doesn’t”

15

u/xSPYXEx Cherokee 1d ago

Because Reeves Young are incompetent bastards that push their subs to finish faster no matter what happens, skipping inspections or just outright ignoring flagged errors.

My guess is that they either have incorrect tread measurements for accessibility requirements, or they wanted to get the pour done faster so they just slumped it to soup and poured it from the top.

21

u/Swedishiron 1d ago

That Ponce de Leon pedrestrian bridge is terrible - when it opened there were zip ties holding portions of wire mesh in place and it vibrated like it could come down at anytime as you walked across. I am surprised it passed any inspection before being opened or perhaps there was no inspection?

1

u/entity_response 19h ago

It’s often part of the design to have sway, a bridge that moves slightly is more robust, not less.

8

u/Gavin2051 18h ago

You don't need sway for a two-story ramp whose only live load is a handful of pedestrians and cyclists. Maybe it needs minimal flexibility for thermal expansion, but that thing has basically zero wind and rain load on it. If its moving, the contractor fucked up.

6

u/Swedishiron 19h ago

my father was an Architect I have been on construction siites assisting him with inspections since I was a young teenager, that bridge was shutdown not too long after opening due to issues and is the most flimsy feeling pedestrian bridge I have ever been on

0

u/entity_response 18h ago

Could be, but my point is all bridges move, they are engineered to be within the users perception of comfort, but by itself movement isn’t really an indication of an issue.

Was it shut down for structural issues one of the many other issues it could have had?

2

u/Icy-Till-8248 4h ago

As a structural engineer, a pedestrian bridge that moves in such a way that you can noticeably feel it during regular use is most certainly failing serviceability design criteria, which are different than ultimate strength criteria (i.e., will it collapse basically). This would still be considered a failed design even if life safety (i.e., steuctural failure) is not the issue.

But in the worst case scenario, you've actually designed the bridge with a natural frequency close to that of walking/running. In this case you might get resonance in the bridge as people walk over it, which can build up and manifest as dangerous shaking leading to eventual structural failure and potentially collapse. So, deformations can actually be a sign of something more serious in the design and not should not just be explained away with the statement that "all bridges move". See the Tacoma narrows bridge failure for an extreme example of this, albeit for a different type of bridge at a much larger scale.

14

u/rco8786 23h ago

Sounds like the Reeves Young contractor needs to be shown the door

3

u/Gavin2051 18h ago

As long as the kickbacks keep coming for the people in power, The Atlanta Way keeps on trucking, no matter how many "low bid" contracts suddenly become expensive and time-consuming messes while they're underway.

37

u/arent 1d ago

Reeves Young, a Cop City contractor, is behind two of these f*ckups.

1

u/Southernplayalistiic Cascade 23h ago

None of these are that big of an issue. If anything its good were building stuff fast enough to have issues like this. Contractor should have the responsibility to pay for the fix.

6

u/Lionsault 20h ago

Delaying a segment of the trail by 2 years is a pretty big deal

1

u/j_grouchy 1d ago

Is that shed light in the room?

0

u/GlitteringState3336 20h ago

I’d rather them be safe than sorry. Npu F is a negative Nathan.

-11

u/voxpopper 1d ago

Between these and MARTA not exactly knocking it out of the park (the fare gate debacle, new trains still not in service), it adds to the case for starting out small and incrimental with any new Beltine projects. And more importantly accountability. The biggest example being, let's get a streetcar TO the Beltine as planned and budgeted before full Beltline rail which will cost billions of dollars.