The “your bridge sucks and deserved to be knocked over” idea just won’t work in Maryland as far as publicity or any legal issue the state is involved in.
Not saying anyone in charge of infrastructure here is very bright, but that is not a good excuse for knocking our crappy stuff over. Kind of the same deal with morons that buy houses around the airport perimeter and then complain about the airplanes. One airport I worked at had a development so close I was over their houses literally maybe 5 seconds after rotation. No matter HOW much they deserved it, if I crashed into one my insurance was on the hook, not theirs.
It is not a question of intellect…….it is a question of neglect. In excess of 40 years of wanton neglect. This is despite obvious prompts resulting from NTSB recommendations etc.
Every vessel that passed under that bridge was required to undergo routine and regular inspections to ensure that they complied with applicable conventions. The “Dali” had passed all recent inspections apart from a fuel guage which was rectified.
No right minded individual is saying that “the bridge deserved to be knocked over” but I am personally saying that the bridge needed to be correctly protected against allision……which it wasn’t. Had this been the case, six people would still be alive and we would be having a different conversation……praising the work that had gone into pylon protection for the Key bridge.
You need to understand that large commercial vessels blackout frequently and many bridges had been hit.
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I am trying to tell you what it LOOKS LIKE to people that live here and drove over and sailed under that bridge. The state government may have little to no recourse, this being a federal/admiralty matter, but the public impression of “we can’t keep our crappy ships from breaking down so you better spend billions of dollars to ship-proof everything they might hit” is a horrible look to say the least.
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Well the reality, that the people who live there need to get their head around, is that the supply chain for the eighth largest US seaport by tonnage has ceased……for some time. The implications will be far more significant than the traffic jams you are now experiencing. At the last inspection the Key Bridge was deemed to be in fair condition given a 6 out of 9 rating. Concerns were expressed about the condition of the northern concrete pylon.
The transport authority in Florida learnt their lesson the hard way and made appropriate changes to protect the pylons. The MTA chose not to follow that lead and now you are witnessing chaos.
Commercial vessels are complex mechanical structures controlled by fallible humans. They hit wharves, bridges, portainer cranes, other vessels and routinely run aground. Not many people die but the ramifications for the global economy can be significant. The smart money attempts to mitigate the risk where possible because things will keep breaking and humans will continue to make mistakes.
Your mechanical US road transport kills around 42,000 souls pa and US mechanical commercial aviation killed 414 souls pa in 2019. What do the residents of Maryland think about that whilst they sit in their traffic jam?
Can you explain to me why we don’t have high rise bordering every flightpath at every international airport? It is no different to transiting 150,000ts past a single point of failure at 10 knots with your fingers crossed. Now there is an analogy for you………
The Key Bridge is already knocked over, but next up is a MUCH more vital bridge my family uses daily. I am waiting for Maryland to figure out the Bay Bridges are even easier to knock over. Probably be a good time to buy a tugboat and get paid to hang out there 
In other news, for the first time I can recall since maybe the 1970s when we had weather cold enough to freeze the Bay the anchorage off Annapolis is totally empty.
- as for airports, I actually had classes at flight school about how to survey the clear areas needed, slopes, widths, and so on. The FAA can’t MAKE you not build in it, but they will drop word to your insurer that they might not want to be covering what you are building. Still doesn’t keep you from having to pay from what you hit though
Don’t hold your breath……it will be fatal.