VDOT has approved the Proffit Road Bridge to handle up to 16 tons o’ vehicle, John Yellig reports in today’s Progress, a four-ton increase that will allow Stony Point‘s firetrucks to cross it.
They stopped sending trucks over it in 2002 when they realized that sending their 15.5 and 16.5 ton trucks over a bridge with a fifteen ton weight limit wasn’t a great idea. After the bridge was replaced this summer, the SPVFC was annoyed to discover that the weight limit had been dropped to twelve tons. Though they don’t normally respond to fires west of the bridge, they figure they should have the option. Now they do, at least for their smaller truck.
I don’t get it. Which number did VDOT pull out of thin air? 12 tons or 16 tons? It doesn’t sound like they changed the structure of the bridge at all. Just the sign. How many other bridges are out there with completely made-up weight limits?
One answer may that inasmuch as bridges are routinely designed to carry well over the tonnage required in the specifications; and a safe upward adjustment of allowed load may be made, dependent upon circumstances as traffic flow and speed, risk versus necessity, etc. (unless things have changed and I thinknot)