Construction Capital of the World
I talked to my mom today and she told me about a bridge in Washington that collapsed over the interstate at 6pm the other night. It was an absolute miracle that noone was hurt especially with it being rush hour. So what I did was pull up the local news on the internet and watched the clip about the bridge. I was shocked at what I saw. I have always traveled that route to Washington from my parents house and now I'm just speechless. It looks like there is a huge concrete "V" in the middle of Interstate 70, you can see the pic of it in my photos. Here is some info that was on the new site:
When it comes to the state's infrastructure, the partial collapse of the bridge onto I-70 in Washington County underscores a huge, expensive problem statewide.
The commonwealth owns 25,000 bridges.
The state says one in four of those bridges is structurally deficient.
Pennsylvania's budget this year is $24.3 billion.
Experts say it would cost more than $7 billion to repair and replace older bridges.
In an interview today with KDKA's Jon Delano, Governor Rendell said there is one way to make a quick fix to the bridge problem.
“You know, the only alternative we would have to put a significant amount of additional money into play, would be to raise the gas tax,” Rendell said. “That's an awfully difficult thing for voters or citizens to be asked to do - to pay more on the gas tax.”
With gas taxes now nearing 45 cents per gallon, there is a surprising amount of support regarding higher taxes to fix bridges.
“It sounds like a nice compromise,” said Della Spoat, of Kittanning.
“As a driver, I'd pay anything to improve the roads around Western Pennsylvania,” said Walt Rydzon, of Mt. Washington.
“A few extra cents a gallon isn't going to hurt that much...that's what I think,” said Dylan Nasse, of Plum Borough.
“The bridges and everything should have been reinforced and done right the first time, instead of doing everything two and three times,” said Ellen Magotta, of Beechview.
PennDOT says the state expects to spend about $400 million this year on bridge repair and replacement work.
At that level of spending, it could take 15 to 20 more years to fix all the older bridges across the commonwealth that are currently in need of repair.
Also they said that the bridge was inspected two years ago and Penndot gave it a 4 rating out of 10 but Penndot states that that doesn't mean that the bridge is unsafe. The news also stated that the state doesn't have enough money to fix the bridge. They lastly stated that all the bridges around here are structurally deficcient.
When I say that this is "the construction capital of the world" it is proven. Every summer 90% of the roads around here are being worked on b/c they can't do it right the first time around.
Toodles!
