Is there anything more irritating than the flashing road signs that thank motorists for their patience as they crawl toward the pathetic remains of the Washington Bridge on I-195 West?

The answer is of course, yes. Also irritating are the agonizing commute times for tens of thousands of people; the mental anguish of knowing a bumper-to-bumper trip awaits (twice); the crushing business losses on both sides of the broken span; the public expenditure sinkhole surrounding this fiasco; the tow trucks idling along the breakdown lanes 24/7/365; the quagmire on streets surrounding I-195 on-ramps; the hopeless feeling that a new bridge is, at best, three years away; and the lack of accountability for anyone associated with the crisis.

The Washington Bridge shutdown happened nearly two years ago. Lives, jobs and businesses have been irrevocably altered — for 22 months and counting. Yet no one has accepted any blame, admitted to any wrongdoings, or claimed any responsibility for the mistakes or missteps that have wounded a vast region and its residents. In fact, it’s been quite the opposite.

An audit report that examined the bridge, the causes of its potential catastrophic failure and the maintenance and management of the structure, was deliberately shielded from the public for more than a year. Now that it has finally been released — not because it was the right thing to do, or because the governor promised to do so before suddenly walking back on that promise, but because it was leaked to an online, anonymously-run blog and to a TV news station — the conclusions are damning.

Hired by the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT), a team from the firm Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates of Falls Church, Va., concluded that: “Program managers, bridge inspectors, and designers should have and could have been aware of problems that were developing.”

The original designer of the bridge — still alive and cogent — believes the bridge could have been rehabilitated, and that DOT leadership obfuscated the truth about the state’s oversight and management of the bridge. Yet everyone involved in the problems leading up to this crisis remains in place to manage the state through the crisis, including Gov. Dan McKee and DOT Director Peter Alviti.

It is now clear that this crisis was caused by more than just a failure of tie-rods in the bridge superstructure. The failures include oversight, management and leadership at the highest levels. The public has a right to ask when someone will be held accountable for the seemingly endless disruptions to lives and livelihoods.