According to reports from The Associated Press (AP), construction of the FIU pedestrian bridge that collapsed and killed six people was behind schedule and millions over budget, partially due to a key change in the design and placement of one of its support towers.
Documents obtained by AP last week show that the Florida Department of Transportation in October 2016 advised FIU and its contractors to move one of the bridge's main support structures 11 ft north to the edge of a canal.
The span's 109-ft-tall pylon was to be built atop a base at the span's northern end. It was designed to contribute to the aesthetics of the bridge, and designers touted its ability to serve as a safety feature because it would have an ideal location for additional lighting and security cameras.
Videos of Thursday's collapse show that the concrete, prefabricated segment of the bridge started crumbling on the same end of the span where the tower redesign occurred, two days after an engineer on the project reported cracks in the same location. It is still unclear if the design change contributed to the failure.
When the bridge collapsed, the project was already behind schedule and running about $2.6 million over its $9.4 million initial budget, cost-tracking documents from February show. Originally scheduled to be completed in July, the finish date had been pushed back to January 2019.
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Source: U.S. News & World Report / The Associated Press
