Rob Perry and Colarusso Have Some Explaining (And Work) To Do!

Cracked concrete can now be easily seen all over the 14-month-old Ferry Street Bridge, particularly on the sidewalks but also on the street surfaces and the island between them.  The island surrounds the bridge's truss.  Yesterday, for the first time, I noticed two additional common warning signs of poorly mixed, poured and/or cured concrete: scaling and pitting.  Perhaps the best time to inspect the bridge is on a day when recent rain has had a chance to evaporate, as was the case yesterday.  This way you can see where water remains in cracks, pits, and scaled areas, sticking around to further damage the concrete surfaces.  And, boy, were there a lot of wet areas remaining on the bridge late yesterday afternoon!  

Concrete is supposed to be impervious to water, not take or soak it in.  Once the water gets inside the concrete, it doesn't leave easily.  And when that water freezes you've got a bona fide compounding mess on your hands.  An expensive, time-consuming, ugly, and embarrassing mess.  All of it preventable!

Below is an example of scaling concrete, where a thin layer easily peels away.  Most of the loose chips revealed dark, wet concrete below.  It is the kind of subpar product that professional pavers do their best to avoid.  Scaling is a sure sign of poorly made concrete, an expected result from amateurs and contractors who don't know what they are doing or are rushing their work.

This area of scaling can be seen in the 
foreground of the lead picture.

I didn't take any pictures of the pitted concrete, but you can easily see it for yourself if you visit the bridge.  Pea-sized pieces of concrete have gone missing, leaving behind a pock-marked surface, particularly on the east side of the bridge near the island.  The concrete is simply not holding together as it should; it is weak and lacks structural integrity.  And it's only going to get worse.  Add multi-ton vehicles and never-ending rain (not to mention the freezing and thawing of rain and snowmelt) and we have ourselves a complete f'ng mess that is unfolding right in front of us.  It is entirely possible that Colarusso will have to redo the entire concrete surface of the bridge.  What does the contract say about deficient work?

Cracked sidewalk and traffic lane.
The crack across the lane appeared AFTER
the crack across the sidewalk.

Cracked concrete island, with the metal 
truss at the top.

A few months ago, at a Code & Infrastructure meeting with Rob Perry in attendance but not Nick Fox, I asked our $125,000 DPW Superintendent if he was aware of the cracks on the sidewalks along the new Ferry Street bridge that I had first noticed over a year ago and that have only worsened.  He simply replied, "No."  I then asked Rob if he had inspected the bridge after it was completed and before it was reopened (there were cracks in the sidewalk already).  Rob replied that he didn't inspect the sidewalks, adding that "engineers inspected the bridge."

I then asked him if he would take a look at the bridge's surfaces for cracks.  He simply replied, "I will."  Neither Jason Foster nor Henry Haddad had anything to add about the matter.

If our DPW Superintendent has done what he told me and the committee members (Jason Foster, Henry Haddad, et. al.) he would do (inspect the bridge) 3 or 4 months ago, he hasn't reported back to the committee that he has done so.  Nor has Jason Foster asked Perry about his inspection of the bridge 14 months after it opened and about 18 months after Colarusso mixed and poured the concrete surfaces over the tracks in the dead of winter.

Crumbling crack in the traffic lane

I think Jason Foster of the so-called CODE (no longer) & INFRASTRUCTURE COMMITTEE wants the issue of the crumbling Ferry Street bridge to be swept under the rug just as badly as Rob Perry wants it to be.

What do you suppose the BOTTOM
surfaces of the concrete look like?