A major event in Pennsylvania happened last year that missed my attention. The Fern Hollow Bridge (also known as the Forbes Avenue Bridge) in Pittsburgh’s East End collapsed on January 28, 2022, injuring some ten individuals. President Biden was an eyewitness to this event. He commented on this last week as he stopped in Milwaukee on his recent travels around the United States touting his economic policies.
“A lot of you were with me when I was in Pittsburgh,” Biden remarked to a group at a wind turbine manufacturer in Milwaukee. “Pittsburgh is a city of bridges – more bridges in Pittsburgh than any other city in America. I watched that bridge collapse; I got there and saw it collapse with over 200 feet off the ground going over a valley. It collapsed.”
President Biden got the first part of his story correct; it is true that Pittsburgh’s 446 bridges are the most of any city in the country. However, he is also a sincere believer in the concept of never letting the truth get in the way of a good story, as he actually did not quite ‘see’ the Fern Hollow Bridge when it was collapsing as much as ‘seeing’ the collapsed bridge itself later that day when it happened.
We can leave alone the lack of accuracy on the details from our President to emphasize that bridges are an important and even vital element to our infrastructure. Roads, bridges, government buildings, and such do not capture the public’s attention but are huge money pits for municipal governments to maintain nevertheless.
The problem, however, is to be able to prevent such things as what happened at Fern Hollow requires annual inspections and addressing any flaws that are recognized. Even maintaining bridges is a difficult and expensive task. According to a recent report from the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, nearly 3,200 bridges in Pennsylvania are currently considered to be in “poor condition.” The good news is that Pennsylvania’s politicians have recognized this problem and have been working hard on it.
In 2015, Pennsylvania led the nation with 22 percent of the bridges considered deficient. In 2017, it was 20 percent and presently is around 14 percent. This is still a startling figure, but the reason it is going down is because of Act 89 of 2013. This act, also known as the Transportation Bill, dedicated monies for bridge repairs but also created the possibility at the county level to increase car registration by an extra five dollars that would be earmarked specifically for transportation infrastructure.
In the fall of 2015, Mark Muroski, the county’s Transportation Planner at the time, pitched to the county commissioners a plan devised to offer the local municipalities an opportunity to have their deficient bridges repaired with a 5% of cost buy-in, with the remaining 95% coming from the Act 89 money. Following this would be the process of securing a bond in which the income stream from the county vehicle fee would cover the payments.
There were 40 structurally deficient bridges in the county in nineteen different municipalities, and the $7 million that could be leveraged would only cover 17 of the bridges. But 17 bridges were a good start, especially given these were the ones in the worst shape. This work is now reaching completion and was done so quickly because the bridge repairs were bundled to lower costs and expedite the work involved.
It is hard for us citizens to appreciate this feat, but those who face the same problems were very impressed. In fact, it was so impressive that at the recent County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP) Annual Conference, the Lycoming County Commissioners were awarded the 2023 Road and Bridge Safety Award for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The commissioners noted that a number of their fellow commissioners from around the state were amazed that so much was done in such a short time. And further, Lycoming County is the only county in the state that uses county funds to help repair municipally owned bridges.
There were a number of important players, but one of the heroes who truly deserves recognition in all this is a young man named Austin Daly, who works in the Planning Department. He had big shoes to fill when Mark Muroski retired, and yet he has risen to the challenge, as was demonstrated in his report given at the Thursday, August 10th meeting on the status of the bridge bundling project. Despite knowing little to nothing about bridges when he started, Austin has since become quite an expert on bridge repair and will be a valuable asset in years ahead.
And we will need this kind of expertise to keep moving forward on a serious infrastructure concern. Lycoming County government keeps coming up with innovative ideas, and we are all the better for it.
