Mapping all 446 of Pittsburgh’s bridges, hoping to avert future collapses

But you're right - the government inspected the bridges often enough to understand they were in poor condition, and even if these guys give their scans of a bridge to an engineer, that engineer is still going to need to visit the site to visually inspect, see corrosion, etc.

If they can make a 3d model that includes the interior of concrete then maybe engineers will be able to estimate the cost of remediation or the urgency of repair a lot better than they do currently, but that's not guaranteed or demonstrated in the article.

The city doesn't have the budget for repairs on all its bridges like the article seems to think. The state doesn't have the budget to repair all of its bridges at once either. They both inspect the structures so they can prioritize the work based on the budget received. I doubt there were any engineers who believed the bridge was going to collapse, but maybe more in depth scans would have revealed something that would have changed their minds.

It’s a Y-Combinator startup, so I doubt they will lose that out of sight, as it seems the primary way to monetize this kind of data. On the other hand, they may pivot.