The wild story of Washington Bridge in Providence, Rhode Island. Just like engineers design structures to be ductile, to fail with grace and warning, we want and need projects like this to happen in an orderly fashion. We should be able to recognize when replacement is necessary, plan ahead for the project, do a good job informing the public, and execute the job on a timeline that doesn’t require panic, chaos, and emergency contracts. The Washington Bridge is a perfect case study in why that’s so important.