PennDOT officials try to calm fears again about bridges with poor ratings after Pittsburgh collapse

PennDOT officials worked to calm any fears again Friday about bridges with poor ratings. A week after the Fern Hollow Bridge collapsed into a ravine in Frick Park in Pittsburgh, PennDOT stressed the importance of maximum weight limits.

The agency oversees more than 30,000 state and locally owned bridges across Pennsylvania. During a virtual news conference, officials said they’re inspected every two years and ones with poorer ratings are checked more often.

“We do have a very rigorous process in place that we do evaluate those bridges to make sure they’re safe. Just because they say poor doesn’t mean that there’s something significantly wrong with that bridge that’s putting them in jeopardy,” said Melissa Batula with PennDOT.

Officials would not take any questions about the collapse of the Fern Hollow Bridge but they said five others similarly designed have been checked again.

“I would say that good news there is these other five bridges are in a little bit better condition. Most of them are fair or good and none of them have postings or restrictions on them. So there’s again no concern with those other bridges,” said Mike Keiser with PennDOT.

Because of the poor rating, the Fern Hollow Bridge had a posted weight limit of 26 tons since 2014. That 60 foot Port Authority bus that was on the bridge only had a few passengers, but fully loaded it likely would have exceeded the posted weight limit. Sources told Target 11 plow trucks and emergency vehicles pushing the weight limit also used the bridge.

“If a vehicle goes over the bridge that’s a little over the weight limit, you know, there’s enough redundancy in our calculations that that’s not going to be any issue. But it’s the volume of those so you know you can’t have a significant high number of those,” Keiser said.

Pittsburgh Police appear to be responsible for enforcing weight limits on city owned bridges. It’s not clear if they’ve ever cited any vehicles.

Target 11 spoke with the Department of Public Safety and officials said they were looking into the issue.

Target 11: Fern Hollow Bridge warning signs were there five years ago

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