Completed Fern Hollow Bridge unveiled in advance of Friday reopening

Less than a year after the Fern Hollow Bridge collapsed in Pittsburgh’s Frick Park, officials unveiled a new span that will open in its place this week.

“This is the best Christmas gift we could give the city of Pittsburgh,” Mayor Ed Gainey said Wednesday as he stood on the newly built bridge.

Gainey had been in office for under a month when the East End bridge collapsed on Jan. 28, injuring 10 people and taking a bus and several other vehicles down with it.

“This is not just a city of Pittsburgh celebration or victory. This is a state victory because we got it up quicker than ever before because we worked together,” Gainey said. “When something happens that’s tragic, we come together.”

President Joe Biden visited the site the day the span collapsed, and returned in October to survey the reconstruction. His federal infrastructure bill provided the $25.3 million needed to replace the bridge.

PennDOT began construction in the spring, building the new bridge on an accelerated timeline made possible by an emergency declaration that aimed to expedite the rebuild. It took officials about a week after the span fell to approve an emergency contract with New Kensington-based Swank Construction Company and Omaha-based HDR Inc. to begin design work on the new bridge.

The new bridge will reopen to traffic Friday, said Maria Montaño, a spokesperson for the mayor.

Before the old one fell, between 18,000 and 19,000 vehicles crossed it daily, according to Montaño.

Despite the speed with which the new bridge went up, Gainey thanked neighborhood residents for being patient.

State Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Squirrel Hill, said many people in the community had to reroute their lives after the bridge fell, finding new ways to and from work, their children’s schools and local businesses.

Frankel said the reopening is coming “just in time to get to grandma’s house for the holidays.”

Frankel called for additional infrastructure investments.

“If we can work together when a bridge collapses into a ravine, I believe we can work together to make sure no Pennsylvania bridge ever collapses,” he said.

Rebuilding such a bridge would typically take about five years, said Katie Thomson, who heads the implementation of the federal infrastructure bill with the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“You showed a city, a state and a country what is possible when we come together to achieve a common goal,” she told the officials, construction crews and other partners gathered at the site Wednesday.

Gov. Tom Wolf said the collapse was a “visceral reminder” of the need for proper infrastructure funding.

“Our communities, our people deserve to know they can rely on the safety of the roads and bridges they travel on every single day,” Wolf said.

Related:

• 10 injured in bridge collapse in Pittsburgh’s Frick Park

• Biden tours Fern Hollow Bridge work, touts infrastructure plans at Pittsburgh stop

• A holiday gift? Reopening Fern Hollow Bridge will clear some headaches for businesses, customers