Issues to consider in the Washington Bridge investigation | Opinion

Christopher Gagnon is a former employee of the RIDOT bridge office .

Having read numerous articles regarding the failed pin connection of the Washington Bridge, I am writing with the hope that this commentary might encourage a public-facing conversation among the general public as well as individuals directly involved in the matter. My perspective is based on my direct experience working in the bridge office at the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) from 2012 to 2023. Such a conversation might allow for a better understanding of what happened and what may be done going forward.

Although attorney Max Wistow, who has been hired to lead the RIDOT legal effort, has declared "open season" with regard to who the investigation may potentially target, and has indicated that "the chips will fall where they may," it should be noted that both their ability to win a legal case and the total amount of money that they earn will depend on who they decide to target. In order to get paid, they must win, and the forensic analysis team is working in coordination with that explicitly stated motivation .

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The state cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, seek financial reimbursement from itself, and so the entire effort appears to be predicated on the assumption that both RIDOT and the Federal Highway Administration are not liable. Although this may turn out to be an assumption that is true, it should lead to further discussion with regard to the adoption of responsibility within state and federal agencies. If state and federal agencies are presumed to be free of liability, what is the appropriate amount of decision making authority they should possess?

Since the engineers conducting the forensic analysis are working in coordination with the RIDOT legal team , it is unclear as to whether the findings will be neutral. There are likely to be a multitude of hypotheses that could, in theory, "explain away" the reason for the pin failure. The pin, in all of its unique complexity, has already failed, and as such, any hypothesis that attributes a causal mechanism for the failure will likely, in an empirical sense, remain untested throughout any of the relevant legal proceedings.

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

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With that said, it is not obvious that technical propositions from RIDOT's forensic analysis must 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 increasing the loading on the bridge in an incremental fashion until it collapses, and investigating the failure modes. Perhaps an incremental loading could be applied to the end of the cantilever span via crane. Drones could provide high-resolution video footage of the bridge underside, including the pins.

If a destructive load test is feasible, and safe, my suggestion would be that all interested parties, including RIDOT's forensic analysis group, publish load rating reports prior to the load test. I would also suggest that instead of factoring the computed loads and resistances, participants should express model uncertainty by specifying a range of potential capacities for each possible failure mode. The destructive load test would provide empirical validation and determine whether or not the models were predictive, and therefore accurate. It would also provide the groundwork for good-faith legal arguments from all sides.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Issues to consider in the Washington Bridge investigation | Opinion