Getting Around: 'Biggest international bridge conference' tomorrow
Sunday, June 01, 2008
By Joe Grata, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The annual International Bridge Conference, conceived here 25 years ago, will convene in the "City of Bridges" once again tomorrow.

Billed as the biggest yet, with up to 1,500 attendees and more than 150 exhibitors, it had to be moved to a bigger venue, the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

Scores of workshops include "Field-Measured Behavior of an Integral Abutment Bridge with Short Steel Pile-Supported Abutments" and "Finite Element Models for Curved Hollow Tubular Flange Girders."

Exhibitors include Splice Sleeve North America Inc., Monotube Pile Corp., Earthquake Protection Systems and the Epoxy Interest Group of CRSI.

Industry groups by acronym include AASHTO TIG, SHRP II, AGA, ABC/HFL, ACMA, NSBA, NHI, TRB and one you may recognize, PennDOT.

So much excitement over the next three days!

Really, this is serious business, altogether professional and highly technical. What happens at the "biggest International Bridge Conference ever" affects all of us. With 6,000 structurally deficient bridges in Pennsylvania, more than any other state, we should know.

Too few people appreciate the importance of such forums and the timely information that's exchanged, but attendees may prevent the next bridge failure like the I-35W bridge collapse that killed 13 people in Minneapolis last August. We turn to them and blame them when disasters happen, but they get no credit for ones that don't.

Although there's a VIP reception tonight at the sponsoring Engineers Society of Western Pennsylvania, it's not party time. The IBC executive committee will welcome keynote speakers, award winners and other special guests to a town whose three rivers, multiple streams, railroads, hills and valleys make it an ideal setting for bridge meetings and studies.

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