I’m not sure if it was “extra” repaving material. It was going to end up on the bridge deck anyway, and it was to replace material that had been removed. They weren’t just adding a new layer on top. They did that just four or five years ago I think. They had been removing material from the bridge for over a month. Not just the bridge, but 35W by my house, a mile north of the bridge, has two lanes scraped down to the foundations. Now, if it came to light that the material on the bridge was intended to repave the lanes up by me, then there might be something to this.
Locally the press is saying that workers reported that the bridge was wobbling more lately as they removed material. This is unconfirmed however.
They had been jackhammering night and day for weeks. I wonder if the vibration didn’t contribute. It’s all speculative at this point. I also wonder if all the jackammer debris didn’t maybe pack up in the expansion joints giving no place for the heat expansion to go. It was over 90 that day. Why guess though? It will come out in the end.
