'There's No Money To Fix It:' Roads And Bridges In Need Of Repair In Limbo As Leaders Negotiate Infrastructure Plan In Congress
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - The struggle to find enough money to keep the roads and bridges in Pennsylvania from crumbling beyond use continues on two fronts.
The Federal Transportation Department says the Commonwealth is on the right track considering tolling some bridges to pay for their reconstruction. In Western Pennsylvania, that means the Bridgeville Interchange with Interstate 79.
Tolling is a lightning rod of public outrage over the idea of having to pay a toll on a bridge currently in use.
Penndot District 11 Executive Cheryl Moon-Sirianni says that tolling is critical.
"I think if it isn't a toll bridge, there's no money to fix it," she says. "So that's kind of where we land, and it's not just the bridges that we were planning on fixing it is the whole interchange."
While that interchange waits for a tolling decision, others are in limbo awaiting passage of the infrastructure bill in Congress.
It has become a political pawn in the battle over President Biden's bigger social safety net programs.
Moon-Sirianni says there are major projects waiting on the infrastructure bill.
On the Parkway West, "There's Carnegie and Green Tree interchanges are only funded through design, so we have those projects moving through the design process but you can't really get into the final design too far without having it fully funded."
While the Commercial Street Bridge between the Squirrel Hill Tunnel and Swissvale is fully funded, the Frazier St. Bridge between the tunnel and Oakland is not and she says it's in major need.
"We're looking to replace it, we don't think we can repair it again but we'll go through the process," she says.
And then there is the Fort Duquesne bridge which is getting by on patches.
"It's losing its concrete quite a bit," she warns. "We just have to inspect it quite often, knock the concrete off which definitely means a major rehab."
All of these projects are in current need, not something years down the road, and with shrinking gas tax revenues there is just no money to fund them.
Without the needed repairs roads may have to be weight limited and that could wind up sending bigger vehicles onto other roads creating issues elsewhere.
