Neville Island Bridge repairs completed, marking the latest in state's effort to address deteriorating infrastructure
Jacob Geanous / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Monday announced the completion of the Neville Island Bridge construction project and touted the state’s recent progress repairing infrastructure.
Mr. Shapiro was joined by state and local officials at a news conference under the I-79 bridge, which handles approximately 56,000 vehicles per day.
Construction on the $43 million federally funded project — which includes new guide rails, signage improvements and structural repairs — began in August 2020 and is the latest in the state’s effort to fix its bridges, the governor said.
Pennsylvania repaired more than 200 bridges of at least 20 feet in length in 2023 — more than anywhere else in the country, according to the Federal Highway Administration. The Shapiro administration has advanced construction projects for another 300 state and locally owned bridges in 2024, according to the governor.
Pennsylvania also repaired 500 more miles of roadway in 2023 compared to the year before.
“When you think about the needs of Pennsylvanians, infrastructure is right at the core of everything,” Mr. Shapiro said. “It gets our kids to and from school, it gets folks to work and allows people to just get out and enjoy themselves … our infrastructure for too long was in desperate need of repair. We’ve addressed that.”
The funding for the Neville Island project came from the $1.2 trillion federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed by President Joe Biden in November 2021, which has led to $2.2 billion in funding for projects in Western Pennsylvania alone.
Mr. Shapiro lauded U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio, who sits on the House Committee on Transportation and who the governor said helped secure federal funding for the region.
“We’re seeing real improvements in folks’ lives,” Mr. Deluzio said. “Real improvements to safety that will save time on commutes and more and the commonwealth has seen a larger drop in the number of poor condition bridges in the last year than any state in the nation. That is this administration delivering for our commonwealth.”
Perhaps the highest-profile example of a bridge failure locally is the January 2022 collapse of the Fern Hollow Bridge, when the 447-foot span over Frick Park tumbled into the ravine below. Four people were injured, including some on a Pittsburgh Regional Transit bus.
The National Transportation Safety Board ruled the collapse was the result of years of neglected maintenance of the 49-year-old bridge, leading to heavy deterioration in the bridge’s legs.
The improvements lauded on Monday have been over a decade in the making.
In 2008, Pennsylvania had more than 6,000 state-owned bridges classified in poor condition. Since then, PennDOT has repaired or replaced more than half of those bridges.
“At a county level, we are responsible for 500 bridges, 400-plus miles of roadway and one mighty tunnel,” Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato said.
PennDOT Secretary of Transportation Michael Carroll said projects like the one on the Neville Island Bridge represent infrastructure investments that also bring jobs.
Matt Smith, chief growth officer at the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, said that every $100 million invested in highway repair supports an estimated 800 jobs over the life of the project.
“Those are real dollars,” he said. “Those are real jobs that investment in infrastructure creates.”
Joe Slezak, a company labor foreman with Trumbull Corp., which did construction work on the bridge, is one real-life example of how those infrastructure projects translate to local jobs.
“It’s good work,” he said. “It’s hard work, rewarding. … It’s fun and I hope it continues. I’ve been lucky enough to not have been off [from work] in 12 years, so hopefully the money keeps coming and we’re able to keep making things better.”