24 September 2007

Tharwa Bridge IS safe (well, it will be once restored)

| asp
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The Canberra Times reports that two NSW civil engeneers see no reason why the Tharwa Bridge cannot be restored.

(left) photo illustration of a restored Tharwa Bridge for vehicles

Despite serious concerns about the safety of the 112 year old bridge and plans to build a new single lane concrete bridge with a pedestrian/cycle lane, both these engineers and the local community want the current bridge salvaged (assumedly for road use).

Don’t get me wrong, I want the bridge to remain. It is a wonderful bit of history and is synonomous with Tharwa. But I believe that its days of being the primary road link for the township are over. It’s time for a new, modern vehicle bridge to be built. The current bridge should be restored for pedestrian use.

Note: Images courtesy Wikimedia Commons and Toyota

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Ohoho I love the internet

Yeah asp, keep ’em coming: especially if you can whip up a 100ft high Jim Morrison (in the crucifixtion pose, of course!) on top of Mt Ainslie. 🙂

As for Queenie – go an’ get stuffed!

Woody Mann-Caruso9:03 am 25 Sep 07

Rather obnoxious

I’ll say, you ugly bitch. More pics, asp!

Queenie, I can’t see you adding a bit of fun

Kind of reminds me of mythbusters graphics – thats either a good thing or shows that they (mythbusters) do not spend much time doing their graphics.

Uh oh! Queenie doesn’t have a sense of humour.

Quick, someone whip out the Nazi uniforms.

I’m loving the pics – keep them coming.

Queenie,
I have been using Photoshop for many years, and was one of the first in Australia to get a copy of Adobe Creative Suite CS3 Master Collection (almost $4500 worth) because of my status as a license customer.
These are just comical/sarcastic images done in very little time and with very little care. Give me an hour and I could seamlessly put you in that famous debate photo from the sixties, hugging JFK while hitting Nixon on the head with a pair of nun chucks.

Ingeegoodbee7:02 pm 24 Sep 07

As a kid I remember seeing a bridge in a town called Treir (sp?) in Germany, build by the Romans in the first century AD and still going strong carrying city vehicl traffic over a river bigger than the ‘Bidgee at Tharwa – I guess anythings possible if you dont have a dipsh!t pinko ar$ewipe running the government.

Asp: I see you just discovered Photoshop… Rather obnoxious, don’t you think, to post two bad shops in one day?

J Dawg,
the new bridge will be uploaded tonight, pending admin approval:)

“you can’t even walk across the bridge”
I walked across it last time it was closed (2005), and while these bridges should move a bit, as per their design. When a cyclist came across it, the thing really shook.
And as we saw in the United States where that much younger, steel bridge collapsed, the effects can be disastrous. That bridge only had “minor” problems that were known of prior to the collapse. This one has serious ones.

asp, you forgot to add a nice brand new bridge in the background with the “Pedal Power!” logo on it, and smug cyclists riding across it.

Bastards.

I think the next bridge should encompass the old bridge. That’ll stuff the 1:100 theorists.

I thought the interesting bit was that they closed the bridge including to pedestrians because it would fail a 1-in-a-100-year event. Call me stupid, but if something is unlikely to happen within my lifetime, I’d rather take the risk and walk across.

PS. This is what I’m talking about when I say we have terrible public admin: no proper risk assessment, slavish adherence in an unthinking conservative way to rules, etc.

Can’t we just let the RAAF bomb it? Either that, or get Kate Carnell to run a competition on a local radio station to find someone to ‘implode’ the damn thing?

I noticed when I was down at Tharwa yesterday that you can’t even walk across the bridge, so the ACT Govt must be really paranoid that the thing is going to collapse.

That bridge had major works done on some 15 years ago for its centenary. Lets face it old timber bridges rot. The railways know this.

hingo_VRCalaisV63:22 pm 24 Sep 07

Maybe they could be restrited to using the bridge every second day to save wear and tear. Works for Beijing!

That illustration (in case anyone is wondering) took ten minutes, from getting images off the web to saving the final file and uploading it.
Not great, but understandable given that I was doing it during a 15 minute break, hunched over a 13″ screened laptop and using only a cordless mouse.

asp for RiotACT graphic illustrator

Everyone in Tharwa will want the original bridge rebuilt until it breaks again, and leaves them isolated for another couple of years.

Is there no story that cannot be improved with a photo illustration?

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