Collapsed Pittsburgh Bridge Replacement Construction To Begin

PITTSBURGH, PA — Construction is expected to begin in late April on a replacement for the Fern Hollow Bridge over Frick Park, which collapsed in January.

State officials announced the date Tuesday and it should come as welcome news to the thousands of motorists who used the bridge before it fell into a park ravine and injured 10 people on Jan. 28 The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the incident.

Gov. Tom Wolf said Tuesday that design and construction efforts are being expedited to build the new Forbes span carrying traffic over the park. More than $25 million in federal money has been obtained for the project.

“With the Fern Hollow Bridge seeing more than 14,000 cars daily, we knew it was critical to act quickly to reconstruct,” Wolf said in a statement “This reconstruction will allow commerce to continue without further interruptions to the lives of community members.”

PennDOT officials did not indicate when the new bridge will be completed. But they said the emergency design and construction methods being utilized will allow the replacement to be in place two to three years earlier than if conventional methods were used.

The new structure will remain along the same roadway alignment and width and is anticipated to include four 10-foot-wide travel lanes, two-foot-wide shoulders on both sides, a five-foot-wide sidewalk, and a 10-foot 5-inch-wide shared use path on the southern side of the bridge.

The entire project site is being evaluated for aesthetic treatments that are expected to include treatments to the concrete pier columns and bridge barriers, painting of the beams, a stream restoration plan, ornamental bridge lighting, and a site restoration plan with tree plantings to restore damaged areas.

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