Talk:Cypress Street Viaduct

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This article was nominated for deletion on 2009-02-05. The result of the discussion was keep.

Untitled

tried to add a link to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMnXZiw3hJk which is a 1950s video showing the viaduct being constructed, also shows design flaws which would eventually lead to it's collapse in 1989. the bot kept removing the link, so maybe someone else can add it for me instead. ive seen links to youtube videos on many other wikipedia articles, so i dont know why i cant add to this one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Derek20la (talk • contribs) 00:31, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unverified/NPR Information

I would love to see verification of this story: The concrete forms for the structure were not adequately constructed, causing the spans between the support pillars to sag. Anyone traveling over the upper deck of the structure up until the mid 70's would experience a pronounced hopping motion as the vehicle traveled up and down the spans. I have personally experienced this. Legend has it that the design engineer was so depressed about the design error that he committed suicide. In the mid 70's, Caltrans added fill material to the spans and repaved them to even out the pavement.

I also have some personal questions about the structure and repair. Was the added weight of the material, and it must have been very substantial, a contributing factor to the failure during the earthquake? I have driven on the bottom deck, sometimes several times a day prior to the earthquake. I noticed large cracks between the supporting pillars and the upper deck, at exactly the same place where the upper deck failed. These cracks were there for years before the earthquake. Was Caltrans ever held accountable for ignoring these cracks?