Hours after the I-35 Bridge collapsed, El Tinklenberg was on TV blaming Carol Molnau and the ‘No New Taxes Crowd’ for the bridge’s collapse. The NTSB’s report ends that myth:

WASHINGTON — Federal investigators probing the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis said Thursday that the structure was heavily loaded with construction equipment — equivalent to the weight of a 747 airplane — hours before a set of improperly designed joints failed catastrophically.

The added weight, combined with errors in the original design of the so-called gussett plates, appeared to produce the breaking point in the Aug. 1, 2007, disaster that killed 13 people and injured 145.

The bridge’s age, the investigators told the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), had nothing to do with the collapse. The board is expected to issue a final accident report today, at the end of a two-day hearing.

I can’t offer better proof that the DFL will use anything as justification for tax increases. Before the victims were even evacuated from the rubble, failed Transportation Commissioner El Tinklenberg was blaming the collapse on transportation policy. Mr. Tinklenberg would be well-advised to gather pertinent information before launching into a diatribe based on opinion.

Mr. Tinklenberg’s statements were purely political. The NTSB’s report was based on verifiable facts gathered during the course of a painstaking, detailed investigation that went where the information took the investigators.

It’s significant that the NTSB found that the original design, coupled with the excessive weight of equipment on the bridge, is what caused the collapse. It’s more significant that the NTSB’s investigators said that the bridge’s age wasn’t a factor in the bridge’s collapse.

Here’s something that El Tinklenberg said in announcing his candidacy against Michele Bachmann:

“All of us knew that we could no longer tolerate sitting by while so many things were happening in our country that were the result of a kind of inattention that we were facing in our infrastructure,” he said at a Capitol news conference, flanked by about three dozen supporters including red-shirted union workers.

Mr. Tinklenberg said that we couldn’t sit idly by as our infrastructure deteriorated but he was the Transportation Commissioner that advocated for shrinking revenues by dramatically cutting license tab fees. Also, I didn’t hear Mr. Tinklenberg criticize Jim Oberstar when Rep. Oberstar diverted the Highway Trust Fund into building bike trails instead of maintaining bridges and building roads.

I also didn’t hear Mr. Tinklenberg criticize Rep. Oberstsar for his abuse of the earmark system, which contributed to the depletion of the Highway Trust Fund.

There are two morals to this saga:

1) We have more than adequate funding for transportation infrastructure if the money isn’t pissed away on re-election projects.
2) The I-35 Bridge collapsed because of design flaws and overloading of the bridge that fatal day.

Neither of those inarguable facts are things that Democrats will admit. That’s really beside the point, though, since we can point the spotlight on the NTSB’s report.

Technorati: Gas Tax, El Tinklenberg, Jim Oberstar, Highway Trust Fund, Earmarks, Bike Trails, I-35 Bridge, Gusset Plates, NTSB, Transportation

Cross-posted at California Conservative