I -40 Hernando Desoto Bridge at Memphis shutdown

[Mr. Matté]

doesn't help that all that traffic has to use that crappy cloverleaf on 55 too.

but THIS TIME, for the I-40 through traffic, it actually is a help that Crump BLVD is through as it is the probable path for the majority of I-40 the traffic.

But looking at Crump, it's a four-lane arterial road with businesses, traffic lights, and low railroad bridges. At most, maybe the state/city (don't know whose responsibility it is) could do like what Minnesota did on MN 280 after the 35W collapse and turn it into a temporary expressway by turning off the lights, removing the cross traffic, and maybe convert the bike lanes/bollards back to traffic lanes (hopefully the cyclist lobby would understand for this instance but it's doubtful).

[sprjus4]

While traffic has certainly been an issue on both sides, it seems that the west approach has been the worst for much longer times of the day. Any particular reason why? The Memphis side has little to no congestion outside peak hours meanwhile the other side sits standstill for miles.

[webny99]

While traffic has certainly been an issue on both sides, it seems that the west approach has been the worst for much longer times of the day. Any particular reason why? The Memphis side has little to no congestion outside peak hours meanwhile the other side sits standstill for miles.

That's a really interesting point you bring up. I can't say why for sure, but I suspect it's because the street grid provides redundancy on the Memphis side. If you get stuck on one approach, you can go around the block and try to get closer or go down to the next through street. But there is zero redundancy on the Arkansas side.

[sprjus4]

But even then, we're talking about 70,000 - 80,000 AADT merging from 3 lanes to 2 lanes. That type of situation happens all the time around the country from urban to rural areas, and yet traffic has never gotten that bad unless there's an accident.

[codyg1985]

MDOT has their VMSs as far south as the north Jackson metro warning of the I-40 bridge closure in Memphis. Surprised the Tennessee DOT hasn't done something similar in Nashville for I-40 and I-65 traffic.

[webny99]

But even then, we're talking about 70,000 - 80,000 AADT merging from 3 lanes to 2 lanes. That type of situation happens all the time around the country from urban to rural areas, and yet traffic has never gotten that bad unless there's an accident.

Is 70-80k the combined volume of both bridges? That seems lower than I would have expected.

[sprjus4]

From an article.

The New Bridge carried around 41k vehicles per day, 30% commercial trucks. The Old Bridge carries around 55K  with 14K being trucks. The smaller bridge already carried more traffic in normal times.

It has also closed barge traffic.and there's this

"It's fortunate this fracture was discovered during a routine inspection and not as part of an investigation following a catastrophic incident,"  Arkansas Trucking Association President Shannon Newton said in a statement. "However, it doesn't change the fact that this closure will have a significant ripple effect on the already strained supply chain. Between increased consumer demand, the driver shortage and now a major bottleneck in Memphis, shippers and consumers across the country should be prepared for longer shipping times until the I-40 Hernando de Soto Bridge is re-opened."

https://talkbusiness.net/2021/05/highway-official-memphis-bridge-fracture-could-have-caused-catastrophic-event/

Maybe closer to 100,000 AADT. But again, not sure why backups are that bad.

[ozarkman417]

My favorite of the many posts about the bridge in the Memphis subreddit.

[MikeTheActuary]

By the way, what is the reasoning to keep it closed to river traffic? Are they expecting an imminent failure? I get taking the weight off of the bridge, but????

From reports I have read, the justification for the halting of MS River traffic under the bridge is because this is enough of a structural fault that the inspectors and engineers can't yet certify the bridge is able to fully support its own weight.

Assuming a more detailed inspection is underway, pronouncing the bridge is able to hold itself up and support its own weight should come once it can be fully verified, and then MS River traffic will be cleared to resume

I agree with the assessment that failure is a possibility. That beam is not redundant. It looks to me to be broken in two not just cracked. From my perspective, the failure would be the deck, not the truss structure. Torsion during a deck failure COULD bring down the arch.  While I think the bridge could fail, it suddenly falling into the river on top of marine traffic doesn't seem a viable likelihood unless activity on the bridge for inspection / remediation is going on.  Until I saw a significant widening of the crack  (in mm not inches or feet) or the deck begins to spall or crack, I would try to keep the river open. That said I would hate to be the one to sign off on reopening the river absent a structural (bridge) engineer signing off without objections from his peers.  Hopefully there is computer data from the seismic retrofit, but it was done at a point in time where there still might not be any.  Then again, this bridge design is unique enough, it is going to be hard to model.

Last night, I browsed through the comments posted on a structural engineering subrredit about the bridge.  TDOT has released a graphic highlighting the relationship of the crack to the overall bridge structure, and the engineers on reddit indicated that it was only the road deck that was really at risk.

[MikeTheActuary]

Maybe closer to 100,000 AADT. But again, not sure why backups are that bad.

On a normal day, with both bridges open, outside of rush hour, there can be congestion southbound/eastbound on the old bridge, thanks to the number of semis taking the tight/slow one-lane ramp to stay on I-55.

I don't know how much of the diverted traffic would think to use surface streets once across the bridge.  Presumably once past the interchange, traffic would flow more freely on I-55 even with the increased volume, so GPS-based navigation might not be smart enough to indicate to drivers, "hey, if the right lane is kept only for traffic staying on 55, and the left lane is kept only for Crump-bound traffic, and y'all didn't gum up traffic with last-minute lane-changes/merging, keeping left and using Crump will be a viable alternative".

[Wayward Memphian]

Y'all are missing the one biggie about bypassing Memphis proper....getting shot. That is not a joke.

https://wreg-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/wreg.com/news/memphis-appeals-to-governor-for-extra-patrols-as-city-hits-36-highway-shootings/amp/?amp_js_v=a6&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQHKAFQArABIA%3D%3D#aoh=16209569785519&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwreg.com%2Fnews%2Fmemphis-appeals-to-governor-for-extra-patrols-as-city-hits-36-highway-shootings%2F

Two Sundays ago massive pile up caused by two sports cars racing happened in my rear view mirror about half a football behind me between Lamar and Airways. A Mustang went to the shoulder to pass traffic, sweved back into the lanes and fishtailed into multiple spins  taking out about 8 others. I knew it was coming cause a single car zoomed by moments earlier scanning for cops stationed along the road due to the shootings. This shit is daily. The posted speed limit might as well be 70 mph. 55 mph is an absolute joke.

[Wayward Memphian]

Maybe closer to 100,000 AADT. But again, not sure why backups are that bad.

On a normal day, with both bridges open, outside of rush hour, there can be congestion southbound/eastbound on the old bridge, thanks to the number of semis taking the tight/slow one-lane ramp to stay on I-55.

I don't know how much of the diverted traffic would think to use surface streets once across the bridge.  Presumably once past the interchange, traffic would flow more freely on I-55 even with the increased volume, so GPS-based navigation might not be smart enough to indicate to drivers, "hey, if the right lane is kept only for traffic staying on 55, and the left lane is kept only for Crump-bound traffic, and y'all didn't gum up traffic with last-minute lane-changes/merging, keeping left and using Crump will be a viable alternative".

no one from California knows to drive straight down Crump. Us smart ones already know how to avoid the cluster in West Memphis and sneak on I-55 at the levee taking advantage of someone's being nice and letting us merge in.

40 percent of all that traffic is frigging trucks, that's what makes it worse.

[US71]

The I-40 bridge, which opened in 1973, carried a 2020 average of 35,000 vehicles a day across the river, 29% of them trucks, according to the report. Degges said the average is closer to 50,000 vehicles a day, with about a quarter being trucks. Its traffic volume was expected to increase to 56,000 vehicles a day by 2040, the report said. (NBC News)

[bwana39]

From an article.

The New Bridge carried around 41k vehicles per day, 30% commercial trucks. The Old Bridge carries around 55K  with 14K being trucks. The smaller bridge already carried more traffic in normal times.

It has also closed barge traffic.and there's this

“It’s fortunate this fracture was discovered during a routine inspection and not as part of an investigation following a catastrophic incident,” Arkansas Trucking Association President Shannon Newton said in a statement. “However, it doesn’t change the fact that this closure will have a significant ripple effect on the already strained supply chain. Between increased consumer demand, the driver shortage and now a major bottleneck in Memphis, shippers and consumers across the country should be prepared for longer shipping times until the I-40 Hernando de Soto Bridge is re-opened.”

https://talkbusiness.net/2021/05/highway-official-memphis-bridge-fracture-could-have-caused-catastrophic-event/

Maybe closer to 100,000 AADT. But again, not sure why backups are that bad.

That traffic circle at Crump  and I-55 is indeed THAT bad. Through traffic for I-55SB  backs up at almost any hour.
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=20377.msg2613196#new

[sprjus4]

From an article.

The New Bridge carried around 41k vehicles per day, 30% commercial trucks. The Old Bridge carries around 55K  with 14K being trucks. The smaller bridge already carried more traffic in normal times.

It has also closed barge traffic.and there's this

"It's fortunate this fracture was discovered during a routine inspection and not as part of an investigation following a catastrophic incident,"  Arkansas Trucking Association President Shannon Newton said in a statement. "However, it doesn't change the fact that this closure will have a significant ripple effect on the already strained supply chain. Between increased consumer demand, the driver shortage and now a major bottleneck in Memphis, shippers and consumers across the country should be prepared for longer shipping times until the I-40 Hernando de Soto Bridge is re-opened."

https://talkbusiness.net/2021/05/highway-official-memphis-bridge-fracture-could-have-caused-catastrophic-event/

Maybe closer to 100,000 AADT. But again, not sure why backups are that bad.

That traffic circle at Crump  and I-55 is indeed THAT bad. Through traffic for I-55 backs up at almost any hour.
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=20377.msg2613196#new

That's not what I'm talking about. The Crump interchange has had the usual rolling slowdowns approaching it plus a somewhat increase in traffic, but what I'm referring to is on the Arkansas side. Traffic is almost standstill for miles extending west of the I-55 / I-40 west split off - all for 3 lanes to go down to 2. You would think the backup wouldn't be that terrible, it's not like 4 or 5 lanes is coming into 2. That's luckily not as much the case on the Tennessee side.

[sprjus4]

The repair of a vital Memphis bridge could take 2 months, chief engineer says. The impacts are already being felt

It could take up to two months to temporarily repair a crack that forced the closure of a vital highway bridge in Memphis, Tennessee, the state's chief engineer told CNN, while dozens of ships with hundreds of barges wait to safely travel the busy waterway below.

The Hernando de Soto Bridge on Interstate 40 -- a major artery for traffic crossing the Mississippi River between Memphis and eastern Arkansas -- was shut down Tuesday for emergency repairs after transportation officials discovered the crack during a routine inspection.

The US Coast Guard put a waterway restriction in place on the river below, and there were at least 44 vessels, with more than 700 barges, waiting to travel the river in either direction Thursday morning, according to Lt. Mark Pipkin of Coast Guard Sector Lower Mississippi River.

"It will be a number of weeks at least until we can have a repair in place, probably six to eight weeks minimum," Paul Degges, Tennessee Department of Transportation chief engineer, told CNN. "Hopefully, we can pull a rabbit out of a hat sooner, but public safety is most important. There are lots of moving parts to look at."
I-40 is a major transcontinental transportation route, Degges said, and CNN affiliate WMC called the bridge a "vital piece of America's infrastructure for moving traffic and freight around the country."

According to the TDOT, the average daily traffic for the bridge is about 45,000 vehicles, with about 25% of that being truck traffic.

Drivers are being rerouted to Interstate 55, about 3 miles south, where another bridge spans the Mississippi River. Late Thursday afternoon, state traffic cameras showed heavy traffic headed eastbound into Memphis from Arkansas, and much of the traffic appeared to be tractor trailers.

From the vantage point of a CNN crew on the ground, a wall of traffic could be seen along I-55, barely moving at a snail's pace.

It's unclear when the crack appeared
Officials are hopeful they'll develop a strategy in the next few days to create a timeline for the repair, Degges said. There will likely be an interim temporary repair to get vehicle traffic back while engineers and contractors work to implement a long-term solution, he said.
Officials hope to have an answer on when it will be safe to open the river to barge traffic "in the next day or so."

"We are looking at (two or three) different scenarios of what different types of repairs could be done to get traffic back up and then from there to move on to a permanent repair," Degges said.

Tennessee shares responsibility for the bridge with the Arkansas Department of Transportation, which discovered the crack during a routine inspection and immediately shut down the bridge, the release said.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said the discovery of the crack and the subsequent closure showed the "process worked."

"We have regular inspection process between Arkansas and Tennessee for that particular bridge and it was that inspection process that revealed that crack before it became an incident," Lee said Thursday.

Degges described the crack as "very unusual." He believes the crack was most likely caused by fatigue or a welding error when the bridge, designed in the 1960s, was originally constructed, but the state will conduct forensic analysis to discern the exact cause.
The bridge was opened in August 1973 with a price tag at that time of $57 million, WMC reported.

It's unclear how long the crack has been there, but Degges believes it has probably been there for a couple weeks. He noted it was not present during a bridge inspection in September 2019.

The Tennessee Department of Transportation has hired an engineering firm and a full mathematical analysis is under way to look at data and models and discuss potential repair solutions.

Lee said the Army Corps of Engineers and the Coast Guard are involved. The state will be partially responsible for the bridge repair, he said, adding, "there is still a lot of information that we need to learn."

Prices of corn and soybeans could rise
Soy Transportation Coalition Executive Director Mike Steenhoek told CNN the marine traffic shutdown is an "unwelcome" situation and, in the short term, prices of corn and soybeans could increase, especially south of Memphis.

If traffic along the river remains suspended, Steenhoek expects the industry to begin shifting to rail and to a lesser extent, trucks, to move product.

Some mitigation appears to be underway, according to Steenhoek.

"I do know that a number of barge loading terminals north of Memphis are decreasing their bids or not accepting grain deliveries altogether until they see some degree of clarity on river transportation," he told CNN.

As for any grain stuck on barges, Steenhoek says there's significant difficulty and expense in unloading and moving it to other types of transportation. "I expect the barges in the queue will wait -- hoping traffic will resume in the near future," he said.

The system has already been stressed by shifting buying and consumption habits, and a shutdown or delay can easily compound the challenges, he said.

Closure coincides with infrastructure proposal
The bridge's closure comes as President Joe Biden is calling for a $115 billion increase in spending to modernize bridges, highways, roads and main streets in need of repair.

The infrastructure plan, which must be approved by Congress, aims to fix the 10 most economically significant bridges in the country, as well as proposing repairs to 10,000 smaller bridges.

It's possible the Hernando de Soto Bridge would be eligible for funding, but the White House's plan lacks details on how the money would be disbursed. The administration has not identified which 10 bridges it deems most economically significant.

The President's plan would create a competitive grant program to fund large bridges that move high volumes of people and freight and are in need of reconstruction or replacement, based on their condition or inability to manage current traffic volumes, according to an administration official.

Once the American Jobs Plan is passed into law, the US Department of Transportation would launch a call for states to submit applications explaining why their bridge is among the most significant because of its size, condition, traffic volume, and importance to the regional or national economy, the official said.

"A bridge like this could likely qualify, but it's hard to say what the metrics will be," said Paul Lewis, vice president of policy and finance at the Eno Center for Transportation, a think tank based in Washington, DC.

At 48 years old, the Hernando de Soto Bridge is newer than the 72-year-old Memphis-Arkansas Bridge on I-55, where traffic is being diverted.

"This kind of fracture is rare," Lewis said, "but it goes to show how we have a lot of bridges that are old and it's going to take a lot of funding and resources to bring them up to a state of good repair."

In an interview with CNN's Jim Sciutto on Thursday, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg pointed to the bridge closure -- and the recent ransomware attack that forced the six-day shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline -- as reasons why the plan is so important.
"We've got a major bridge out of commission. We've been reminded in a very blunt way with the pipeline issues just how important infrastructure is," he said. "What we definitely can't afford is to do nothing."

[cpzilliacus]

N.Y. Times: 'Get People Off': Shutdown Ordered for Cracked Bridge in Memphis - The Interstate 40 bridge over the Mississippi River could be closed for weeks, if not longer, because of damage that could have led to "a catastrophic event."

It was meant to be a routine inspection. But when an engineer climbed out onto the Interstate 40 bridge over the Mississippi River this week, what he saw led to an urgent call to 911: "We need to get people off the bridge immediately!"

He had spotted a crack. He could not miss it, really. A critical beam was fractured to the point of being nearly severed.

The Hernando de Soto Bridge, which reaches from downtown Memphis into Arkansas, is inspected every two years, so the crack could have been there for weeks, months or well over a year. But in that moment, the inspector stressed to the 911 dispatcher on Tuesday, the bridge needed to be shut down right away to avert a disaster.

Since Tuesday, vehicles have been blocked from crossing over the bridge and vessels from passing beneath it. Officials are unsure just how long the shutdown will last, stirring fears of delays and disruption that could reach far beyond Memphis.

[kalvado]

There's an interesting post on Reddit, with a photo allegedly showing crack full sized in summer 2019, before previous inspection. If that is true, it may be a truly interesting development

[bwana39]

From an article.

The New Bridge carried around 41k vehicles per day, 30% commercial trucks. The Old Bridge carries around 55K  with 14K being trucks. The smaller bridge already carried more traffic in normal times.

It has also closed barge traffic.and there's this

"It's fortunate this fracture was discovered during a routine inspection and not as part of an investigation following a catastrophic incident,"  Arkansas Trucking Association President Shannon Newton said in a statement. "However, it doesn't change the fact that this closure will have a significant ripple effect on the already strained supply chain. Between increased consumer demand, the driver shortage and now a major bottleneck in Memphis, shippers and consumers across the country should be prepared for longer shipping times until the I-40 Hernando de Soto Bridge is re-opened."

https://talkbusiness.net/2021/05/highway-official-memphis-bridge-fracture-could-have-caused-catastrophic-event/

Maybe closer to 100,000 AADT. But again, not sure why backups are that bad.

That traffic circle at Crump  and I-55 is indeed THAT bad. Through traffic for I-55 backs up at almost any hour.
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=20377.msg2613196#new

That's not what I'm talking about. The Crump interchange has had the usual rolling slowdowns approaching it plus a somewhat increase in traffic, but what I'm referring to is on the Arkansas side. Traffic is almost standstill for miles extending west of the I-55 / I-40 west split off - all for 3 lanes to go down to 2. You would think the backup wouldn't be that terrible, it's not like 4 or 5 lanes is coming into 2. That's luckily not as much the case on the Tennessee side.

Yes, the traffic is backed up from the I-55 cloverleaf exit all the way to nearly I-40. In effect the you go from 4 lanes (2 on I-40 and 2 on I-55) to three lanes on I-55, to 2 lanes for the bridge, then one lane for the southbound I-55 exit (Turn off to stay on.) While all of it contributes, the 270 degree exit was a problem that backed traffic up at all hours before the increase in volume, this makes it insurmountable. My thought originally was virtually all the through I-40 traffic would stay on Crump Blvd, it appears that much of it is taking I-55 to I-240. Google maps has the through traffic following Crump, but it appears a lot is choosing the all freeway route.

[Chris]

Could this crack / severed beam be the result of the February winter storm?

[froggie]

If Arkansas wanted to get really creative, it could advise Long Distance EB I-40 traffic at Little Rock to use US 67/Future I-57 to US 412 to reach the I-155/US 412 Bridge, and follow US 412 back to I-40 in Tennessee. Tennessee could sign the same Long Distance detour for WB I-40 traffic approaching Jackson, TN

Such a routing would add almost an hour to a trip and involve significant mileage on 2 lane roads. It might be a decent alternative made personally by someone to take, but too far out of the way and not viable to be signed something like on a VMS.

Given the ongoing delays in Memphis, "add almost an hour" becomes a wash.

"Significant mileage" is actually about 33 miles (out of ~270 total), with 20 miles of that 33 a high-quality 2-lane on the Missouri side.

[sprjus4]

If Arkansas wanted to get really creative, it could advise Long Distance EB I-40 traffic at Little Rock to use US 67/Future I-57 to US 412 to reach the I-155/US 412 Bridge, and follow US 412 back to I-40 in Tennessee. Tennessee could sign the same Long Distance detour for WB I-40 traffic approaching Jackson, TN

Such a routing would add almost an hour to a trip and involve significant mileage on 2 lane roads. It might be a decent alternative made personally by someone to take, but too far out of the way and not viable to be signed something like on a VMS.

Given the ongoing delays in Memphis, "add almost an hour" becomes a wash.

"Significant mileage" is actually about 33 miles (out of ~270 total), with 20 miles of that 33 a high-quality 2-lane on the Missouri side.

Depends on the time of day in direction. Eastbound could be more inclined due to the miles of stopped trucks on the Arkansas side, but westbound seems to get through with little congestion or moderate, but still moving at peak hours. It depends on preferences in the end, direction of travel, and time of day.

If for those 2 lane roads, if one followed I-40 to I-55, there would be none of those if it does become an issue. It appears to be the faster route if bound to I-155 anyways.

[US71]

Latest update from ARDOT

During the course of our investigation we have found earlier evidence of damage on the #40MSRiverBridge captured by an inspector's drone video. We are now investigating to see if the damage was noted in previous reports and what actions were taken

[sprjus4]

The Mississippi River has re-opened to maritime traffic under the bridge.

[kalvado]

Latest update from ARDOT

During the course of our investigation we have found earlier evidence of damage on the #40MSRiverBridge captured by an inspector's drone video. We are now investigating to see if the damage was noted in previous reports and what actions were taken

Looks like they took this seriously:
https://twitter.com/ManascoD/status/1392613304305061896