Design of Pedestrian Bridge Over Route 29 in Charlottesville VA / From Slave Patrols to Predictive Policing: The Social Construction of Crime Data in America 6 views

Technical Report Abstract This project involved the design and analysis of a pedestrian bridge superstructure spanning Route 29 in Charlottesville, Virginia. The purpose of the bridge was to provide a safe pedestrian crossing over a heavily trafficked roadway while satisfying structural, serviceability, and constructability requirements. The bridge was designed as a 160-foot structure consisting of two simply-supported 80-foot spans supported by a central pier. Design criteria were based primarily on AASHTO LRFD and VDOT standards. The design process began with deck design and load determination, including pedestrian live loading, railing loads, and dead loads. Multiple beam layouts were evaluated before selecting a three-beam configuration that satisfied deck overhang and deflection requirements. Two superstructure alternatives were then developed: a prestressed concrete design using PCBT girders and a structural steel design using composite steel beams with shear studs. Both systems were analyzed under Strength I and Service I limit states, as well as vibration and live-load deflection criteria. The prestressed concrete design ultimately provided superior vibration performance and reduced long-term maintenance requirements compared to the steel alternative, despite similar estimated material costs. The project demonstrated the importance of balancing considerations like structural safety, serviceability, constructability, and economic considerations during bridge design. It also highlighted how serviceability requirements such as deflection and vibration often govern pedestrian bridge design more strongly than ultimate strength requirements. STS Research Abstract This paper examines how predictive policing algorithms are influenced by the historical development of policing in the United States. Predictive policing systems are presented as neutral technologies that can reduce crime through objective analysis of data, but this paper argues that the information these systems rely on was shaped by decades of unequal policing practices. Because of this, the algorithms are not truly independent from the history of American law enforcement. Instead, they reflect many of the same assumptions and priorities that influenced earlier policing systems. The paper follows the development of American policing beginning with colonial slave patrols and continuing through Reconstruction, Jim Crow enforcement, and the development of national crime statistics. It focuses especially on the creation of the Uniform Crime Reports and the growing use of crime mapping and data-driven policing. As police departments increasingly relied on arrest statistics to guide patrol decisions, communities that were already heavily policed continued generating more crime data, which in turn justified additional surveillance. Over time, this created a cycle where policing patterns reinforced themselves through data collection. The final section of the paper looks at predictive policing programs such as PredPol and the Strategic Subject List. These systems rely on historical police data to forecast where crime is likely to occur, but they rarely consider the historical conditions that produced that data in the first place. Using the Social Construction of Technology framework, the paper argues that predictive policing systems are shaped by social and historical forces just as much as they are by mathematics or computer science.

BS (Bachelor of Science)

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2026-05-11