Editorial: What we learn from sinkholes

Tribune-Review
Monday, Oct. 28, 2019 4:01 p.m. | Monday, Oct. 28, 2019 4:01 p.m.

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Crews work at the scene of a Port Authority bus that had fallen into a sinkhole along 10th Street and Penn Avenue in Downtown Pittsburgh on Monday, Oct. 28, 2019. The bus and a car fell in the sinkhole shortly before 8 a.m. One person was taken to the hospital for a minor injury.

Is there any better allegory for infrastructure than a sinkhole on a public street?

It is a collapse of what was put in place for a specific function.

There could be lots of reasons a sinkhole happens. It might be the weather, like the one along Route 30 where Greensburg meets Hempfield, that opened up in July after drenching rains. They are often simple geology, because rock and dirt do move and settle over time. They don’t have to be about someone actively doing something wrong.

But what they illustrate is that even if nobody did anything wrong, something might still need to be fixed.

A sinkhole shows us that something as solid and unyielding as the ground we stand on — or more precisely, drive on — can crumble into nothing. It shows we need to have a plan for when that happens and act quickly to stop a small problem from widening into a gaping maw.

A sinkhole never just gets better. It’s not a storm to be endured. It demands the blue-collar construction guys and the white-collar engineers and the elected officials to get on the same page fast to prevent an inconvenience from becoming a nightmare.

Infrastructure is always a popular word in government when it’s time to campaign because everyone knows there are roads, bridges, dams, tunnels and so much more that need to be repaired, replaced or rethought entirely. For some reason — generally the price tag — infrastructure seldom moves to the front of the line when it’s time to actually do the job.

But if there’s an even better parable for how important infrastructure is, it’s the sinkhole on a public street opening up under a bus, like the one that happened Monday while an Allegheny County Port Authority bus was sitting at a light at 10th Street and Penn Avenue.

That particular picture shows the ripple effects of infrastructure. It is the framework for so much else. It affects transportation, utilities, jobs, housing, health care and the economy.

Infrastructure can’t be just a buzzword or an applause line. It’s too important. It’s the bedrock of everything else we need.

And there’s nothing worse than when that bedrock crumbles underneath you.