Editorial: Bridge failures have courtroom costs
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The cities and counties of Pennsylvania need to pay attention.
The same goes for PennDOT, too.
They need to note what happened on Friday as attorneys for a Penn Hills couple confirmed what was as sure as gravity at 6:41 a.m. Jan. 28.
That was one minute after the Fern Hollow Bridge in Frick Park collapsed into a ravine. It took Tyrone Perry and his wife, Velva, with it — down 100 feet, cracking the windshield of their pickup and setting off the airbags. The couple both suffered the same injury — spinal fractures — leaving Velva Perry too hurt to walk as they tried to hurry from the wreckage because of a broken gas line. Another driver and first responders had to carry her to safety.
It is unsurprising that the husband and wife thought they were going to die. It is just as unsurprising that they intend to sue the Port Authority of Allegheny County, the City of Pittsburgh and PennDOT.
This is the consequence of failing to invest in maintaining structures.
There is a real and potentially expensive cost to not keeping these structures in stable shape. Actually, there are several.
When infrastructure isn’t maintained consistently, it is more expensive to repair it when officials are forced to do so. The design work to replace the Fern Hollow Bridge has already begun, with that and construction anticipated to cost more than $25 million in federal money.
How often could work have been done on the bridge over the years for that much money?
There is the lack of confidence that people who use those bridges feel in their commute. There’s no way to put a price tag on that.
But it is possible to put a number on the legal cost — the amount of money paid to victims or the amount billed by lawyers.
There are about 32,000 bridges in Pennsylvania. Records show about 1 in 8 is in poor condition. These bridges are owned by the state or by counties or municipalities. And every bridge — not just the 4,200 poor ones — is at risk of becoming a liability when its maintenance is neglected.
That’s a burden that won’t just fall on the victims of a collapse. It will impact every taxpayer who ends up paying for work that wasn’t done when it should have been.