PITTSBURGH -- The bridge in Brighton Heights is by no means the only bridge in Allegheny County with a low sufficiency rating.
Team 4 investigative reporter Jim Parsons looked through the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation's bridge rating database to find locally owned bridges that are in poor shape. He found almost three dozen that have a lower overall rating than the one on Davis Avenue in Brighton Heights.
Link: PennDOT Bridge Inspection DatabasePennDOT gives each bridge a sufficiency rating that's based on a variety of structural factors. The Davis Avenue Bridge has a sufficiency rating of 27 out of a maximum of 100.
Team 4 found 34 other locally-owned bridges in Allegheny County that have a rating lower than 27.
They include the Fox Chapel Road Bridge over Squaw Run in Fox Chapel. It has a sufficiency rating of 6 out of 100.
There's also the North Avenue/Brighton Road Bridge on the city's North Side. That has a sufficiency rating of 4.
And the worst sufficiency rating for an open bridge belongs to the Pine Creek Bridge on Thompson Run Road in Ross Township. That rating is just a 2.
Overall, there are 110 locally owned bridges in Allegheny County listed as structurally deficient. They include the Rankin Bridge, which is currently being repaired, the Mansfield Bridge in Dravosburg, the Brownsville Road Bridge in Baldwin and the Painters Run bridge on Bower Hill Road in Upper St. Clair.
PennDOT's Jim Struzzi says just because a bridge has a low sufficiency rating or has been deemed structurally deficient does not mean that it is in danger of falling.
If that were the case, Struzzi says, PennDOT would order a bridge closed -- just as the one in Brighton Heights was closed several years ago.
Now, here are some other quick facts you may not have known:
- Bridge must be inspected every two years.
- Structurally deficient bridges are inspected at least once a year, but often more than that, according to PennDOT.
- Almost every municipality in Allegheny, Beaver and Lawrence counties contracts with PennDOT to take care of locally owned bridge inspections.
- If you have a concern about the safety of a bridge, call 1-800-FIX-ROAD and PennDOT will send someone out to look at it.
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