Pittsburgh lost over half of it's population over a 40 year stretch starting in the 70s. Blaming them in the past for not being able to tell the future doesn't make a lot of sense.
When they built these bridges, it probably seemed pretty reasonable
I'm amused that people are willing to contextualize this bridge failure within what is essentially the entire 20th century economic history of Pittsburgh; and then act like that history somehow excuses the complete failure of local governments over that same time period to either repair or eliminate unsafe infrastructure. It's honestly nothing short of absurd.
No one is honestly expecting the local governments throughout the Pittsburgh metropolitan area to eliminate 150 bridges (or some other arbitrarily large number) by 2023... They expected the local governments (and the state and federal governments) to behave competently and never let it get to this point. The decline of Pittsburgh as an industrial hub started over half a century ago... They've had plenty of time to address things like this in that context.
The fact that keeping infrastructure safe is "political suicide" or "costs too much money" is essentially the entire problem - and it's a problem that is not at all unique to Pittsburgh.
I've been across this bridge probably a hundred or so times since childhood... scary stuff. Our geography is pretty prohibitive to population increase for a larger tax base to support the infrastructure. Lots of plateaus and rivers are the reason for the large number of bridges and tunnels. Even as a local, Pittsburgh is really difficult to get around. The T doesn't go to many places around the city. Buses have the same problems as cars. The inclines stopped being useful. Have fun getting hit by a car while cycling (you'll have the strongest calves to make up for it). The roads are hard to navigate and there isn't enough space for the innovative roundabout. There are some benefits from the geography like culturally distinct neighborhoods but the infrastructure issue really needs addressed. Fortunately, we have our best civil engineers working on the problem [0]
That's fair. I do also agree that it seems obvious, but given the number of the people in this thread and elsewhere suggesting that fixing it would just simply be so easy, it doesn't seem like that's the case for many others.
I didn't read the OP as saying "nowhere else has infrastructure problems" but "bridges are a particularly acute problem in Pittsburgh for these reasons." I would certainly agree that suggesting this kind of issue is unique to Pittsburgh would be misguided.
The issue is not unique to Pittsburgh, even if the location has its own specific challenges.
More than 30% of US bridges are in need of repair or preservation work, and on rating bridges in either "good" or "fair" condition, the total bridge population has fewer than 50% rated as "good". [0] About 7-8% are rated poor.
Broadly-speaking yes, but none of that would have addressed this collapse. This was a two-lane bridge between two major neighborhoods. People need to get to those neighborhoods and they'd have to divert about a mile north to do it without this bridge.
Pittsburgh is built at the intersection of three rivers and atop the folded spine of the Alleghenies. Any way you slice it that city's gonna have either a lot of bridges or a lot of grumpy people who can't get anywhere.
There's nothing about using transit that would decrease the number of bridges in a city like Pittsburgh. The transit needs bridges to cross rivers and hollows too.
An awful lot of these bridges started as footpaths and ox-cart turnpikes.
When you go to Pittsburgh for the first time, you will learn that the city has 450 bridges because they're necessary, and you can't just go eliminating a third of them
They can, in fact, maintain the bridges. You might not know this from a brief look at a newspaper article.
What happened is that the bus was too heavy for the bridge. It's PennDOT's fault.
Look up the weight of a bus. Look up the average weight of an American. Look up PennDOT rider numbers. Do the math. They were three tons over on a 26 ton limit.
The media made it a show case for Biden's infrastructure plan, but it almost proves the opposite.
It was first rated poor in 2011, from Pittsburgh Post Gazette [1].
The collapse came in the wake of troubling inspections dating to 2011 that show the aging span has been rated in poor condition, according to the National Bridge Inventory.
Records from the inventory show that the bridge was consistently found to be in poor shape during inspections from 2011 to 2017, with estimated repairs at $1.5 million.
Mr. Gainey said the bridge was last inspected in September 2021. A statewide report from last year noted the bridge was still in poor condition.
The repair estimate was $1.5 mil in 2011. As someone posted in another comment, they spend 4 times more on public safety than on public works: $250 million vs $59 million. This seems like a failure of the city and state governments to prioritize. I know that Pittsburg has lots of bridges, but if they can't support it, then they should close some. This issue is neither unexpected, not a global or cataclysmic event. If the city needs constant maintenance help from the Federal government to maintain its infrastructure, then it simply can't afford it.
Its stuff like this that scares me. Pittsburgh claims to have more bridges than any other city in the world.[0] You're driving around here, and you cross little ones without noticing. I hope I'm not ever near (or using) a collapsing one. The rivers are big here.
> Which bridge that is currently in operation should be closed next?
The article/video actually touches on this:
> The City of Pittsburgh quadrupled their spending on inspection, maintenance, and repairs. And they redid the load ratings on all the bridges they owned, resulting in one bridge being closed until it can be rehabilitated and two more having lane restrictions imposed.
Most people are unable to accurately diagnose a bridge structure other than "yeah looks rusty". And if that were the case, they wouldn't be driving much of anywhere in that part of the country, which is called the "rust belt" for a reason. Pittsburgh has a very high number of bridges, if you go anywhere in that city and you don't want to cross a rusty bridge, you can't go very far.
there are many bridges like this all over Pittsburgh
This is the really scary part. Given PGH's geography, it is nearly impossible to travel through the city in an efficient way without crossing a bridge.
You could go back even further. A bridge collapse was made possible by the building of a bridge. So you could go back to the moment when the do-nothing alternative (cost: $0) was rejected in favor of building a bridge. Well why was that decision made? Let's keep going back. This is where you start running into certain pachyderms in the room. The problem being solved with a bridge, is the existence of 8th Street, a soul- and flesh-destroying 8-lane traffic monstrosity that apparently is sufficiently inconvenient, intimidating and dangerous for human beings to cross unassisted, that a bridge starts to look like a good idea. Seems like the people who allowed 8th St. to happen deserve some of the blame, namely backward-thinking urban "planners" who think it's still 1950, haven't heard of (lalala I can't hear you) induced demand, peak oil or climate change, and who have collectively been sold a bill of goods, and who don't have the imagination to think up any ways of creating "economic activity" in the town that don't destroy the town. This species unfortunately infests the entire continent and kills 35,000 people a year, so I don't expect them to lose sleep over these 6.
So Pennslyvania's clearly got a problem, but Pittsburg (and the state on the whole) gets more rain and far more snow and ice, so even if they were the same age, it doesn't really seem comparable.
When they built these bridges, it probably seemed pretty reasonable
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