A 1912-era bridge in Kansas City, Missouri, is so notorious among motorists, it has its own Twitter and Facebook page titled “The Bridge on Independence Ave.”
The satirical page proclaims, “I have been feasting on your human concoctions for decades. Your wheeled steel boxes are quite delicious. Please feed me more!”
The Facebook page and Twitter account show recent pictures of accidents between trucks and the Independence Avenue bridge, which has only 12 feet of clearance.
Shawn Lauby, director of safety and administration for the Kansas City Railway Terminal (KCT) Co., said the bridge gets hit about twice a month. KCT owns the bridge.
There were three collisions between tractor-trailers and the bridge last week, according to the Kansas City Police Department. No injuries were reported in the accidents, but each of the tractor-trailers sustained damage.
“The problem sure doesn’t seem to be resolving anytime soon,” Lauby said in the Kansas City Star.
The person who created the Facebook page and Twitter account said he or she wishes to remain anonymous.
“I have zero affiliation with the bridge. I don’t work for the city, I don’t work for the railroads, and I naturally don’t work for a trucking company of any sort,” the page’s creator posted Friday on Facebook. “What you see on this page, everything I post, it’s all for fun.”
Officials with KCT said they have invested around $50,000 into signage and repairs on the bridge over the past several years.
“We went and added LED signs at the city’s right of way in the hopes of addressing a number of incidents that are happening,” Brad Peek, KCT’s director of transportation, told the Northeast News (Kansas City). ““We’ve just tried to increase the visibility of the clearance. We’ve also looked at possibly lowering the roadway through there to possibly increase the clearance. Our engineers have found a number of utilities that keeps us from being able to lower Independence Avenue there.”
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