A Forbes Avenue bridge in Frick Park collapsed Jan. 28. (Photo by Ryan Loew/PublicSource)
by Emma Folts, PublicSource
Pittsburgh has seen its infrastructure collapse, catch fire, cave in and break in recent years, culminating on Friday with the collapse of the Fern Hollow Bridge.
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation had rated the condition of the Forbes Avenue bridge in Frick Park “poor” prior to the collapse, which injured 10 people. But it’s not the only bridge to receive such a rating: 175 of Allegheny County’s 1,580 bridges are also in poor condition, according to PennDOT.
As local officials continue to highlight the importance of investing in infrastructure in the aftermath of Friday’s bridge collapse, here are five recent examples of infrastructure failures and damages in Allegheny County.
Route 30 collapse
A section of Route 30, located in East Pittsburgh, collapsed early in the morning on April 7, 2018, falling about 40 feet after a wall above the route broke and caused a landslide. Debris and mud caused gas leaks, severed power lines and damaged the Electric Avenue Apartments, a senior living center, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
A family home, a business in North Braddock and four other apartment buildings were evacuated following the landslide, TribLIVE.com reported. Dozens of residents were displaced in total, but no one was injured.
A PennDOT official told WESA in 2018 that excessive rainfall was believed to have caused the collapse. While the rest of the highway sits above solid rock, the portion that collapsed was built over a landfill estimated to be from the 1930s.
Movement under Route 30 several days before the collapse had prompted outside experts and PennDOT to inspect the highway, and the route was closed the day before due to buckling, according to the Post-Gazette. The officials discovered the landslide upon further inspection and began ordering evacuations before the collapse.
“It was sinking before, but we never imagined the magnitude that it was a landslide,” the PennDOT official told TribLIVE.com. “The wall was holding up the whole entire hillside, and when the pressure got too strong the wall broke.”
PennDOT data around the time of the collapse showed that about 21,000 vehicles used the collapsed section daily, according to TribLIVE.com. Route 30 opened to traffic in June 2018 following repairs that included adding a retaining wall, bolstering the hillside that collapsed and putting in a replacement drainage system, according to WESA.
Liberty Bridge fire
A construction fire nearly destroyed the Liberty Bridge in September 2016. The fire burned at more than 1,200 degrees and took firefighters about 30 minutes to extinguish.
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