PennDOT’s District 11 Chief Cheryl Moon-Sirianni suggested Monday the new Fern Hollow Bridge could open to traffic by the end of 2022 — less than a year after the Jan. 28 collapse of the original span. Three years, Ms. Moon-Sirianni said, is the typical time from start to shovel.
It’s an extraordinary example, especially if the agency and city hit this early target, of how governments and the private sector can work together when an emergency forces them to collaborate and forego the usual red tape, which often is a cover for sloth. Not every project can, or should, move so quickly, but the early success of the Fern Hollow Bridge replacement shows it’s possible to build big projects more efficiently than Americans have been trained to believe.
Monday’s press conference marked the arrival of the first, massive concrete beams that will support the new bridge’s deck. At 150 feet long and 8 feet high, they are the biggest beams of their kind commissioned by PennDOT.
The regional PennDOT executive said Monday the department picked a consultant and contractor for the job on the day the bridge collapsed. Design began a week later. The state Department of Environmental Protection accelerated all the approval processes, and digging for the new foundations began in April.
Each step in this process would have normally taken, at best, several months.
There’s still a long way to go. Supply chain issues, shoddy work or communication breakdowns could slow the project. The public art component of the project — two Pittsburgh-based artists have been hired to beautify the span, as experienced by people who both cross over and pass under it — could spruce up the plain design, or be a tedious afterthought.
But so far, so good. Ms. Moon-Sirianni, and Mayor Ed Gainey and his administration, should be proud of the collaborative work they’ve done to heal the wound in Pittsburgh’s urban landscape left by last winter’s collapse. Along with the promising Bridge Asset Management Plan, which we continue to insist should be made public, the collapse might someday be seen as a turning point for the rebuilding of Pittsburgh.
First Published: July 25, 2022, 9:05 p.m.
