HARRISBURG – State Transportation Secretary Allen D. Biehler said PennDOT is taking immediate action to re-inspect 54 steel deck truss bridges
by the end of November.
“The safety of Pennsylvania bridges is paramount to Governor Rendell and, at his direction and support, PennDOT made the decision to go well beyond the guidance from U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters,” Biehler said. “We will be re-inspecting all truss deck bridges rather than limiting our review to the 30 bridges originally identified as being similar in design to the one that tragically collapsed in Minneapolis.”
Biehler said PennDOT is mobilizing its in-house team of more than 100 bridge inspectors and will be reaching out to engineering firms across the state to supplement its own bridge inspections team. Initial estimates are the effort is expected to cost roughly $2 million.
“I want to assure the motoring public that our bridges are safe even though many of them are in need of repair. My family and I do a lot of driving throughout the state and I’m not going to hesitate for one second before crossing any of our bridges,” Biehler said.
“PennDOT already has an aggressive bridge inspection program that regularly inspects all of Pennsylvania’s bridges at least once every two years to identify even the slightest deficiency,” he said. “Our staff and contractors will immediately begin the re-inspections and they should be able to complete the review by the end of November.”
In the past four years, Pennsylvania has made significant state investments in our bridges. Last year, PennDOT invested an unprecedented $558 million in 867 bridge projects statewide with $133 million being spent on bridge preservation and the remaining $425 million devoted to rehabilitating and replacing structurally deficient bridges. Despite the record level of investments since 2003, Pennsylvania has the
largest number of structurally deficient bridges in the nation — nearly 6,000 statewide.
“People are hearing a lot of talk in the media now about ‘structurally deficient’ bridges, but they need to know it is merely a technical term we use to identify bridges in need of repairs or replacement to bring them up to current standards.”