Pittsburgh neglected Fern Hollow Bridge warnings for years, federal investigation finds

Left: A bus rests on the collapsed Fern Hollow Bridge on Jan. 28, 2022. (Photo courtesy of Tracy Baton) Right: The rebuilt bridge in February 2024. (Photo by Pamela Smith/PublicSource) Inspectors repeatedly flagged drainage issues and corrosion, and the city did little to respond, leading to the Jan. 2022 disaster. Charlie Wolfson, PublicSource Federal investigators reported that Pittsburgh’s Fern Hollow Bridge& collapsed& in 2022 because the city failed to take action on decades of warnings from state-picked inspectors — while inspectors themselves made critical errors that contributed to the disaster. “Maintenance and repair recommendations were repeatedly made to the City of Pittsburgh, however they failed to act on them,” said Steve Prouty, a structural engineer and investigator-in-charge with the National Transportation Safety Board [NTSB], during a meeting to determine the causes of the collapse. “This led to progressive deterioration and structural failure of the bridge.” The bridge collapsed early in the morning on Jan. 28, 2022. Multiple vehicles and a city bus fell with the 450-foot bridge into a Frick Park ravine, causing injuries but no fatalities. The collapse spurred the& administration of Mayor Ed Gainey to emphasize bridge upkeep during his first year in office, but it also highlighted...