Lights out for the Blatnik Bridge?
February 19, 2012 at 6:00 pm in Duluth News Tribune
The iconic lights that outline the Blatnik Bridge linking Duluth and Superior will go dark and come down later this year during maintenance on the bridge.
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So if I have the incredibly irresponsible liberal mindset correct, Reinert and Gauthier are considering forcing the Department of Transportation to spend money it doesn’t have for decorative lighting? Seriously? I suppose when you have a liberal president who doesn’t mind spending trillions of dollars that we can never pay back, this all makes perfect sense. Wow.
You elected ‘em, you got ‘em and you’re getting exactly what you deserve with these two.
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Ya, its Obmama’s fault for sure…. you got that one right Danny
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I was going to use the phrase “reading comprehension,” but those words are probably too large. Try paying attention.
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Yes, because Obama decided it would be fun to start a couple of wars and initiate tax cuts on the rich that have put the wealth gap at an all-time high, bankrupting the middle class, businesses small and large, and every government agency, ensuring that the economy will suffer for decades.
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DanH, King of Darkness, would you prefer that every decorative light in Duluth be turned off then? Do you have any priorities, or do you just oppose everything the government does when it shows up on the front page?
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I oppose two state legislators who want to force a state agency (meaning us) to spend millions on decorative bridge lighting when we can least afford frills. The whole “want vs. need” thing. Look it up.
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If it’s that big of a deal, then why stop there? Why not shut off the Aerial Lift Bridge lights too? Or the city park lights? Why not all the lights, if we’re so strapped for cash? Up until this morning, I bet you had absolutely no problem with the lights on Blatnik Bridge. Yet today you came on here and now suddenly *Oh my gawd, it’s such a big deal!! Cut the lights!*
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Hold bake sales and have car washes and rummage sales to raise money. Maybe all those people from the Twin Cities who love Duluth could kick in some money, or get into one of those voting contests for best city- just a thought.
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Weren’t they just saying the city’s cup floweth over with tourist tax money? Pitch in Duluth.
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‘They’ better replace them lights.!!
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The lights make the bridge a distinctive nighttime landmark. Fiscal conservatives will oppose funding and liberals likely favor.
What’s most troubling is Reinert negotiating skills are nonexistent. He urges Wisconsin to meet halfway and then tells the media if Wisconsin doesn’t cough up the $, there’s a workaround available through the Minnesota DNR. I thought negotiating meant getting the best of your opponent not telling your opponent through the media, don’t worry, if you don’t pay 1/2 we’ll get it done without your participation.
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We’re talking about Roger here. Two shining points of his intelligence:
1-”Put the Vikings stadium in Duluth!” You know, because A-That would happen, B-Doing so would mean thousands upon thousands of drunk drivers on the road 8+ Sundays a year. Pure brilliance.
2-A couple winters ago it was icy. Real icy. Roger walked out of his house, onto icy sidewalks, got in his car, drove on icy surface streets, got onto 35, and promptly crashed his car on the ice. And who did he blame? That’s right, State Patrol/MN-DOT because they didn’t tell him it was icy.
Normally I would ponder how someone of such minimal intelligence represents Duluth, but then I remember better.
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“In the land of the blind, the one eyed man shall rule”. Well, in Duluth with its’ voting population dumbed down to the point they have been, naturally Reinert will look like a genius, even if his IQ is a lower number than his shoe size. Typical DFL’er. Sad for Duluth, truly sad for Duluth.
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Well said, a bit distressing putting important decisions in the hands of that prodigious mind.
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I have a few thoughts on this topic: first, I remember when the bridge was built back in the late 1950s, we walked across from Duluth to Superior when it was only steel, before it was open for traffic, only the concrete deck was laid, between the two lanes it was wide open down to the water, later a galvanized steel grate covered that 3′ wide opening, some of the grate is now in used at UMD for two little bridges over Tischer Creek.
second: the day it opened my brother, a Harley Davison racer, was the first to cross the ‘high bridge’ at over 100 mph on his racing Sportster with only his AMA number plate on the front, #83 jr.
third: I remember an occasion back in the mid-1960s when a sheet of ice formed on the overhead center span, the sun warmed it causing it to fall onto a passing car, going through the windshiel and killing the driver.
fourth, during most of the existence of the bridge there were only conventional highway lights on the bridge. People act as though we are preserving some long-standing tradition, not so, this wasteful, non-green energy sucking, high maintenance ‘light-show’ is another reason Al Gore just called me saying he can see my carbon foot-print from outerspace.
Maybe we can find other ways to blow the sales-tax money from the new ‘sunday liquor sales’.
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Yes, it’s a measure of the pace and impatience of our society today that a 15 year-old feature is already considered “iconic.” The 30 year-old Metrodome is called a “relic” that needs to be razed. These notions make us oldtimers nervous.
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The BB is a very beautiful bridge, both in a photographic and architectural sense.
The Metrodome is a camel (when you design a horse by committee). It’s not REALLY a baseball stadium, and it’s not REALLY a football stadium, nor is it a true concert/event center either. It’s just….The Metrodome.
While there are some good memories attached to it (87/91 WS), it’s a poor offering in terms of sports complexes. And now unfortunately fans, taxpayers et. al have lost out on the best option for not only the Vikings but the state due to the Met Sports Commission & the political bigwigs who made sure Arden Hills got torpedoed.
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http://www.mattcintosh.com/tmp/blatnikunderconstruction.jpg
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Apparently, 3/4 of the people don’t seem to like a 50 year old Kodachrome slide taken of the construction of the bridge.
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Matt, I loved the old photo, and I also loved the old swing-out-of-the-way interstate bridge. Once on the return trip from pattison park our neighbor told me his car full of kids was a nicle less than the ealier trip out there. He took a head count and discovered he forgot one child. Upon returning to pattison park, they found the missing child playing in the beach sand with his/her little shovel, unaware everyone else had left! That was the Heone family with 11 kids, we only had 9!
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Does the operating cost include the replacement of burnt out bulbs or just the electricity. If it is just the electricity, they are getting ripped off. They say there is 220, 50 watt bulbs. If you are paying 10 cents a Kilowatt hour, that would be 11 Kilowatts an hour, or $1.10. If you are running them 10 hours a night, that would be $11… 365 days a year, it would be $4,000…. not $15,000- $20,000. If you used LEDS that used 1/10 the power…you would hardly ever have to replace them, and the electricity cost would drop to about $400 a year.
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Good, analytical question.
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Well you’ll have one guy in the boom actually changing bulbs.
Then you have four guys standing around him on their cell phones watching.
Then you have four guys on cell phones around the four guys on cell phones.
Just like during the I-35 construction when they wouldn’t open the NB on-ramp at 27th West in 2010. Why? One guy was putting small shovel loads of dirt onto the ground while SEVEN (I counted) guys were standing around behind him on cell phones, smoking, or smoking while on cell phones.
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Thats union labor for you. I know a guy that works for a trucking company and he was complaining about something like that. They got up to a dock to unload a truck. Two guys were standing around. They asked the guy if they could move the pallet blocking the loading dock. They said it wasn’t their job, it was bob’s job. Bob was on lunch, and wouldn’t be back for 45 minutes. The guy I knew asked if he could move it, they said no, he wasn’t allowed to use their equipment. So something that would have taken 2 minutes took over 45 until the guy got back from lunch.
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Could be Bob was the only one with a forklift/walkierider license?
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I asked about what happened. Basically the forklift ran out of propane. There is one guy whose job it is to replace the propane on forklifts. Not that anyone else is not capable of doing it, but that it is his job. If someone else does it, its stealing work from that guy, and you could get fired for it. I was also told that on a construction site, if there is a truck in the way and you need it moved, you can’t just move the truck, you have to get the guy whose truck it is to move it, otherwise you could get fired because you are stealing work from that guy.
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I move pallets all the time with a pallet jack. I’m five feet tall. What was on that pallet? There is something wrong with this world.
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Just light the Minnesota side……..
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Better yet, enforce the “jake braking” or “compression braking” that is prohibited on Piedmont Avenue (according to the one sign I have seen), and with the money from the tickets pay for the lighting. Like Matt posted use LED lighting, light the Minnesota side, and with the remainder of incoming revenue we could possibly finance the aquarium.
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As a possibly cheaper option, maybe MN can build little plywood platforms that attach to the arch. Then, the clientele from The Last Place on Earth can set up their marijuana grow lights on the platform, along with their plants.
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Why would the purchasers of synthetic pot (YUCK) grow their own?
While your comment is tongue-in-cheek obviously, it is a sad commentary that we lose millions of tax dollars on a product that never kills anyone, while wasting millions (just in MN) using tactics that have created body counts. Then when something comes along that really, doesn’t cost a whole heck of a lot, and is pretty common sense, stuff like this comes along.
Were this state to get its collective head out of its posterior (I know, I know) perhaps we’d have more money for projects like these.
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I am surprised that no one has questioned just why it would cost $1.2 million to replace the wiring and lights.
That comes to $5454 per light! Right up there with the $450 hammers the military buys. Something sounds just a bit fishy….
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Let me get this straight now, 1959 to 1993 no lights and we survived having a “High Bridge” unlit. Someone thinks it is a good idea to place lights to make the “High Bridge” pretty. Average cost for those nearly 20 years 10 thousand dollars per year equals 2 hundred thousand dollars not counting installation. Now the 47 percent of the population that pays no taxes wants to spend another 2 million dollars for pretty for the next 20 years. I finally understand why we in MN have a 2 billion dollar deficient.
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Is roggie boy running for reelection this year? It seems he can’t let a single thing pass without opening his mouth and displaying his stupidity.
I thought he was of the Al Gore school of global warming, where the illustrious leader spends $30K a year on his household utilities while at the same time scolding others for their wasteful ways. Now the avowed global warming alarmist, RR, want’s too waste energy lighting up a bride for all to see? His public proclamations make me embarrassed to admit I’m from Duluth.
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Typical. Attack the messenger, ignore the message. Hugh, if you honestly wanted to cut the lights on the basis of environmental reasons, I would have your back. But the only basis for your argument is austerity. “We don’t want to pay for it, so you can’t have it.”
If you were genuinely concerned about the environment, you would have a point. But you’re not. You only play the environmental card when it suits you to promote your own agenda.
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I’m just all to happy to be pointing out the hypocrisy of the left when it comes to the alleged gloBULL warming. I guess if it’s pretty, it doesn’t count against carbon credits, eh?
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“bridge” for all to see.
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I am thinking the Minnesota side should have purple and gold in honor of the Vikings and let Wisconsin put up their green and gold. LED lighting is the way to go…
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