Mark Woods: Juxtaposition of aging bridges and shiny stadiums is an American story
Mark my words … a science and engineering edition.
When we build bridges, we expect them to last for more than 50 years.
When we build sports stadiums, we expect them to ... be obsolete in a few decades?
That was one of the things that struck me recently while reading a lot of stories about America’s bridges and sports stadiums. And I don’t mean any of these stories were about both bridges and sports stadiums.
The bridge stories came in the wake of Baltimore's Key Bridge collapsing after being hit by a container ship on March 26.
The stories not only dissected the collapse and raised questions about bridge protections, they detailed how America has about 43,000 bridges deemed to be in “poor” condition. While the Biden administration pushed through legislation in 2021 to provide $40 billion to repair and replace bridges, it will take much more than that. And our old bridges aren’t getting any younger.
The stadium stories came in the wake of Kansas City voters rejecting a tax plan to fund a new baseball stadium downtown and a renovation of Arrowhead Stadium, home of the Super Bowl champion Chiefs since 1972.
Kansas City is just one of many places with stadium issues heating up lately. As the headline on a recent Washington Post piece said: “A sports stadium boom is coming to America. Is that a good thing?”
That story detailed how the last building boom started around 1995 (which just happens to be when the expansion Jaguars began play in a new stadium) and said that with the leases of 44 teams across four different leagues expiring in the next decade, we could be headed for “one of the greatest stadium-construction frenzies in modern history.”
Even renovations, it said, can have a stunning price tag.
That same day I read a story about aging bridges.
This juxtaposition doesn’t just happen with adjacent news stories.
It happens when you travel across America. It happens when you cross one of the two bridges — the Mathews (71 years old) or Hart Bridge (57) — that drop down near the site of a football stadium that is 29 years old but, according to its primary tenant, has reached a tipping point where a billion-dollar renovation is necessary.
I know that bridges-to-ballparks is apples-to-oranges in all kinds of ways. Construction, purpose, funding.
The city money we’re talking about spending to renovate a football stadium couldn’t just go to bridges. (Yes, it could go to a lot of other things.) And this isn’t meant to press a panic button and say the Mathews or Hart bridges are unsafe. The state routinely inspects all public highway bridges.
But the two bridges closest to our stadium are old enough that their condition is rated as “fair.” And they have reached the point where they’re deemed “functionally obsolete” — meaning that the bridge design is outdated.
Not that their age or condition makes them stand out. The National Bridge Inventory includes 810 bridges in Duval County. More than 40 percent are at least 50 years old. And that's in the ballpark of the national average.
But when it comes to ballparks ... the NFL inventory includes 30 stadiums and only three are at least 50 years old.
By renovating EverBank Stadium, at least it should ensure it stays standing until that ripe old stadium age. Although it still would have a ways to go to reach the lifespan of the old Gator Bowl (67 years when it was demolished in 1994) and some of the stadiums I grew up with (like Wrigley Field, 110 and counting).
A place like Wrigley is the exception, particularly for professional sports today. I tried to put together a list of the former stadiums where I saw games: Tiger Stadium (Detroit), Pontiac Silverdome (Detroit), Georgia Dome (Atlanta), Fulton County Stadium (Atlanta), Yankee Stadium (New York), Giants Stadium (New Jersey), Tampa Stadium, Orange Bowl (Miami), Milwaukee County Stadium, Comiskey Park (Chicago), Metropolitan Stadium (Minneapolis), Metrodome (Minneapolis), Cleveland Municipal Stadium, Busch Stadium (St. Louis), Candlestick Park (San Francisco), RFK Stadium (Washington D.C.), Foxboro Stadium (New England), Kingdome (Seattle), Hoosier Dome (Indianapolis) and, I'm sure, some more I'm forgetting.
This exercise made me feel old. It also made me wonder:
Why is it that we’re able to build bridges (and a lot of other structures) that we use for the good part of a century, but we rarely anymore seem to build sports stadiums with that kind of lifespan?
The answer, of course, isn’t engineering.
It’s expectations.
It isn’t that NFL stadiums become unsafe after about 30 years. It’s that leases start to near their expiration. And during that time, the expectations of the league, owners, teams and fans keep escalating. The stadium of the future one day quickly becomes the stadium of the past. (Prime example: the Houston Astrodome.)
Although pro sports franchises don't necessarily use these exact words, they basically say their stadiums are “functionally obsolete.”
Kind of like an old bridge.
Except that you don’t have to negotiate a new lease with an old bridge. And across America, we’re much more likely to have a sense of urgency about sports stadiums.
Viva Viktoriia
Speaking of science and engineering: Last week I wrote about Viktoriia Galushchak, who fled Ukraine when the war was starting, creating award-winning science fair projects at St. Paul’s Catholic School Riverside.
An update about the eighth grader: At the State Science and Engineering Fair of Florida, she won several more awards — including the Grand Award, the highest honor at the state fair — and was selected to compete in a national science fair for middle-school students.
For her project, Viktoriia created a program that uses the computer’s camera to create an interactive learning experience for the user — in this case, teaching Ukrainian to fellow students.
mwoods@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4212
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Aging bridges and shiny stadiums make a very American story