Questions to Consider in the Washington Bridge Investigation

Christopher Gagnon is a former employee of the RIDOT Bridge Office.

After reading many articles about the Washington Bridge pin connection failure, I am writing in the hopes that this commentary may encourage a public discussion among the general public as well as those directly involved in the matter. My perspective is based on my direct experience working at the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) Bridges Office from 2012 to 2023. Such a conversation may provide insight into what happened and what can be done in the future.

Although attorney Max Wistow, who was hired to lead the RIDOT legal effort, declared “the game is open” on who might be targeted by the investigation, and indicated that “the chips will fall where they may.” , it should be noted that their ability to win a case and the total amount of money they win will depend on who they decide to target. To get paid, they must win, and the forensic analysis team works in coordination with this explicitly expressed motivation.

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There is no way the state can seek financial reimbursement from them, and so the entire effort appears to be predicated on the assumption that neither RIDOT nor the Federal Highway Administration is responsible. While this hypothesis may prove true, it should lead to further discussions regarding the adoption of accountability within federal and state agencies. If federal and state agencies are presumed to be immune from liability, what is the appropriate degree of decision-making authority that they should possess?

Given that the engineers conducting the forensic analysis are working in coordination with RIDOT’s legal team, it is unclear whether the results will be neutral. There are likely a multitude of hypotheses that could, in theory, “explain” why the pins failed. The pin, in all its unique complexity, has already failed, and therefore any hypothesis attributing a causal mechanism to the failure will likely remain empirically untested in any of the relevant legal proceedings.

Untested hypotheses may be both technically plausible and false at the same time. Although such arguments may not result in a fair and just legal outcome, adopting an untested technical hypothesis derived from forensic analysis may nevertheless present RIDOT with the most viable path to a legal victory. The neutrality of forensic analysis is an area that should be of interest to the Attorney General.

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That said, it is not clear that the technical proposals emerging from RIDOT’s forensic analysis should remain untested. There is more than one pin and the bridge has not collapsed. Has RIDOT considered performing a destructive load test? I am referring to the practice of gradually increasing the load on the bridge until it collapses, and studying the failure modes. Perhaps an incremental load could be applied to the end of the cantilever span via a crane. Drones could provide high-resolution video footage of the underside of the bridge, including the pins.

If destructive load testing is feasible and safe, I would suggest that all interested parties, including RIDOT’s forensic analysis group, publish load evaluation reports. Before to the load test. I would also suggest that instead of considering calculated loads and resistances, participants express model uncertainty by specifying a range of potential capacities for each possible failure mode. The destructive charge test would provide empirical validation and determine whether or not the models were predictive, and therefore accurate. It would also provide the basis for good faith legal arguments by all parties.

This article was originally published in The Providence Journal: RI can’t seek financial reimbursement from itself, so the whole effort seems based on the assumption that RIDOT and FHWA aren’t responsible.