Skywalk in Hotel Collapse
Kansas City, Missouri. A quick growing city that is on a building spree. In the center of this booming construction market is the Hyatt Regency. The building’s star attraction: a series oof suspended skywalks in the main atrium. During the construction of the Hyatt Regency, a disaster happens. A section of the atrium’s glass ceiling crashes to the ground. Engineers investigate, and found that the accident was a one-off incidence as the bolts were wrongly installed. Construction continues and the building opens as planned.
On a July 17, 1981 night, more than 1500 people crowd in the atrium for a dance competition. Before long, loud pops rang out across the atrium. The skywalk began to sag. Few more seconds later, the skywalks collapsed. 65 tons of concrete and glass rained down. In all, 114 people lost their lives, with 186 injured. The scale of the disaster made this the deadliest disaster in American engineering history.
How could this happen? This was the question immediately raised. Looking over the wreckage, local journalists noticed that rods that once suspended the walkway were still hanging from the ceiling. Few days later, a team from the National Bureau of Standards. However, when the team arrives to investigate, they find the lobby was empty. The building’s owners removed the rubble for private analysis.
According to Kansas city building codesm, the walkways should have been able to carry 1280 people. There were only around 60 that night. Harmonic vibrations were also not to blame due to different frequencies. When the blueprints were finally available for analysis, it was clear that there was inconsistencies between the design and what was built. The rods hanging from ceiling was only supposed to carry the weight of the upper walkway. In the built structure, the rods carried the weight of the upper and lower walkways.
When courts ordered the wreckage to be examined by investigators, it was found the connection points of the rods were to blame for the disaster. The poor design could not bear the heavy weight of the walkway and the people on it. In fact they were so weak, they could only carry 1/3 of the weight required by building codes.
Hernandez, J. (2021, July 17). One of the deadliest U.S. accidental structural collapses happened 40 Years Ago Today. NPR. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2021/07/17/1016603199/one-of-the-deadliest-u-s-accidental-structural-collapses-happened-40-years-ago-t.
Widening the highway does not fix traffic
Back in 2004, interstate 10 outside Houston, known as the Katy Freeway, was an incredibly congested roadway in the United States. This then promoted Texas to spend billions of dollars to widen the road to become the widest highway in the world.
To the average person, the government’s decision to widen the road made sense. If the road is wider, it can accommodate more cars. This should then mean less congestion. Unfortunately, reality is not as simple as it seems.
In the years since the expansion, travel time on the freeway has increased. Why did this occur? The answer is a result of the concept of induced demand. Road congestion is a huge turnoff for many drivers. In the age of technology when people can view live updates of traffic, drivers can make decisions ahead of time. When they see the road is congested, drivers may turn to other forms of transportation, or wait for a less busy time.
When a road is expanded, drivers will see that the road is not congested anymore, they will decide to use that newly expanded road. This quickly clogs the road again, leading to increased congestion.
So, how can we solve this problem? The answer lies in public transportation. Buses and trains can transport far more people than any road can ever dream of.