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.
From the Post-Gazette article there was a driver and two passengers on the bus, so it might not have been over limit this time but sounds like it would have been at other times on that route.
I used to walk under that bridge quite a bit, hopefully no one was under it when it collapsed (it doesn't sound like they suspect there was, but I guess it could potentially be hard to tell).
This hits close to home… I’ve run under and over that bridge many, many times. I really hope no one was on their morning run under it, but it looks like everyone who was on it got away with minor injuries.
It is a main artery for connecting two neighborhoods… there are many bridges like this all over Pittsburgh, but it’s not the “big” ones over one of the three rivers.
Odd timing, but Biden is also in town today. Talk about crumbling critical infrastructure…
Pittsburgh allegedly has more bridges than any other city in the world. One collapsed last January.[0] I had driven over and walked under it many times. An uncomfortable number of other bridges in the city are in poor repair.[1] If one of the bigger ones over one of the rivers here collapse, it will be a tragedy of similar magnitude to your nightmare.
> 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.
I believe my family and I drove over this bridge, when we were in Pittsburgh 4 years ago.
I hate to say this, but the condition of bridges like this is one of the major reasons that Pennsylvania currently has one of the highest gas taxes in the country.
And whatever PennDOT is spending the tax money on, this bridge-- in one of the two largest cities in our state-- collapsed anyway.
I used to walk across this bridge every day. You could feel whole bridge shake when heavy vehicles would drive over it (Lived in Reagent Square 2017 - 2019). I remember one morning I was trapped on the bridge for an hour in traffic on my drive to school because the city of Pittsburgh could not afford to keep the roads plowed.
Very thankful that nobody was hurt when it collapsed, and as other people have pointed out it is representative of all of the infrastructure that many cities have but can no longer afford to maintain or replace.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The bridge was listed as in "poor" (the worst of 3 possible conditions) and in need of immediate structural repair since 2011. There are pictures of rusted-through members, like this one[1] from 2018 where a diagonal member has been replaced with a cable and some prayer that it doesn't end up in compression. Google Street view shows the west side missing lower diagonal bracing[2] compared to the east side. The bridge was scheduled for fracture-critical and special inspections every 12 months. All 4 steel columns were at condition state 4 (poor condition, higher numbers are better condition).[3]
We know why it collapsed, in general terms: it wasn't repaired for years. We don't know the exact trigger, there are so many bits that could have broken first it's hard to tell. It's quite possible the snow load, bus, and other vehicles were simply enough to overload it, since it had been derated from 67.5 tons down to 33 tons (26 tons on the sign in street view though). Those articulated buses used by PA DOT range from 19.5 to 22.5 tons curb weight, so the bus + snow load + 4 (or maybe more) other vehicles could easily have exceeded 26 tons.
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