Bridge safety group lobbying for a ‘chunk’ of change on transportation matters

National group’s traveling bus features a jarring hood ornament–a huge chunk of highway steel and concrete.

July 21, 2014; 4:14 PM • by Trevor Dickerson

A traveling bridge safety group that lobbies for transportation bills to fix the nation’s crumbling bridges and roads rolled into the Museum District Monday afternoon.

Spot the bright yellow school bus owned by Fixourbridges.org from behind, and you might not notice anything out of the ordinary, at least at first. But walk around to the front and you’ll see something jarring–a huge chunk of steel and concrete from the guardrail portion of a bridge, which presumably fell onto the bus’s hood.

WTVR-TV producer Andy Pederson photographed the school bus, which is pulled around the country by a tow truck, late Monday morning near the station’s studios on West Broad Street.

Fixourbridges.org, a project of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, aims to draw attention to bridges and roads that have outlived their life expectancies and urge citizens to contact their congressional representatives to ask that they introduce or support highway and transportation funding bills.

It isn’t immediately clear whether the organization is in town for an event or just passing through to spread their mission.

From the group’s website:

Investment in our country’s critical infrastructure has fallen by 40% in the last 20 years. Our roads and bridges are too often unsafe or congested with traffic. It’s more than a minor inconvenience — bridges are collapsing, potholes are causing accidents and damaging our cars and roadways are often nearly impassable due to traffic. We can’t afford to kick the can down the pothole-ridden road any longer.

Photo/video: Andy Pederson via Twitter