EDITORIAL: Secretary Buttigieg Visits the Broken Bridge and Blames Dead Engineers

EDITORIAL: Secretary Buttigieg Visits the Broken Bridge and Blames Dead Engineers

The Washington Bridge fiasco seems to get more and more bizarre — or at least the explanations by government officials do.

 

On Tuesday, United States Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg visited the Washington Bridge and made one of the more incredulous statements.

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He blamed the dead for the failure of the Washington Bridge.

 

To set the stage, it is important to know that the Federal Highway Administration had approved — twice — making appropriations for repairs to the bridge in 2018 and 2021 and had not required the bridge be replaced.

 

The 2018 repair work cost $25 million and was approved by the Federal Highway Administration and in 2021 another $78 million was approved for this ongoing project.

 

So when GoLocal News Editor Kate Nagle asked Secretary Buttigieg about who was responsible for the failure, he made one of the most bizarre assertions.

 

He blamed dead bridge engineers who designed the nearly 60 years ago.

 

Here is how it played out:

Nagle asked, “Secretary, as you know, some Rhode Islanders have said they might not survive this — especially small businesses. Where does the responsibility ultimately lie — from the USDOT, to the Federal Highway Administration, to Rhode Island government. The failure of this bridge — who’s ultimately responsible for this, Secretary?”

 

“I wish I could have a conversation with some of the people who came up with this design in the 1960s that appears to be the only one of its kind in the country compared to others…but what we know is none of those people here today,” said Buttigieg.

 

Nagle fired back, however, questioning the role of inspections of the bridge over the years — which ultimately rests with RIDOT — resulting in what was finally deemed multiple catastrophic failures.

 

Buttigieg doubled down on his claim that engineers from more than a half-century were at fault.

 

“Actually, I’m very concerned about the design of the bridge and that’s why we put the word out in the country,” said Buttigieg. “I don’t think there are any other bridges that have this unique combination of design qualities, but if there are, we’ll have to figure out ways to inspect what otherwise would be [inaudible]."

 

The response was silly. 

 

One has to ask, if this bridge was so poorly designed, why did transportation officials approve it?

 

Why did federal and state officials repeatedly pay to refurbish and extend the life of the bridge—spending nearly $100 million in federal and state funding in just the past six years?

 

The answer to the cause of the failure of the bridge may be criminal or it may have been incompetence. The cynical might charge that a cover-up is now being rolled out to cover up the real causes.

 

For sure, the Secretary of Transportation did nothing to infuse confidence in the federal government’s review process.

 

He did blame the dead.