By Chuck Biedka and Stephanie Ritenbaugh
Pittsburgh Tribune Review
Copyright 2006 Tribune Review Publishing Company
All Rights Reserved
A 3-ton weight restriction on the deteriorating Freeport Bridge means ambulances and fire trucks can’t use it to cross the Allegheny River on Route 356.
The bridge is located where Armstrong, Butler, Allegheny and Westmoreland counties meet. Freeport has reciprocal agreements with fire companies and ambulance crews in those counties to provide mutual aid during emergencies.
Local officials hope to meet with PennDOT officials this week to discuss repairs.
“The short term is to shore up the bridge and get the weight restriction off. The long term is to do everything that needs to be done to make sure it’s up and meets all the codes,” said Kevin Evanto, spokesman for Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato.
PennDOT estimates repairs will cost between $2.5 million to $3 million and take several months to complete, according to a release sent Thursday. A full rehabilitation will cost between $30 million and $50 million.
The four-lane bridge crosses two waterways. One section crosses the Allegheny River, and another portion crosses Buffalo Creek.
Evanto said the bridge is important, not just to commercial and private vehicles but also to emergency vehicles responding to calls on both sides of the river.
“It’s something we’re going to focus on and work on a solution,” Evanto said.
There are two rehabilitation options being considered for the bridge. One option would add a pedestrian and bicycle lane, in addition to repairing existing structures. The other, less expensive one, would reduce the number of driving lanes from four to two, include the pedestrian/bicycle lane and redesign the Freeport side of the bridge to eliminate structures that require regular maintenance, according to the release.
According to PennDOT, an average of 10,500 vehicles per day use the Freeport Bridge, including 950 commercial trucks.
“What the inspection found is the steel is deteriorating around the entire structure — all the girders, support beams for the deck — all that steel that comprises that bridge shows deterioration,” said Jay Ofsanik, safety press officer for PennDOT’s District 12, which has jurisdiction over the bridge. “That’s why it’s necessary to post the 3-ton limit. We need to get a contractor in line and complete all the repairs pointed out by the bridge inspection.
“We inspect the bridge every two years,” Ofsanik said. “It’s on our list of bridges we watch.”
Freeport volunteers have two ambulances and two fire trucks in their station, said Freeport Fire Chief Dominic Ravotti.
If those ambulances are out on a call or if more help is needed, other first responders coming into the borough would use the nearby two-lane Laneville Bridge, which is for outbound traffic only.
“We’ll have to close the nearby Laneville Bridge to traffic for a short time to get trucks or ambulances through Buffalo Township and down the hill, across the bridge and then onto Second Street,” Ravotti said.
If aerial ladder-pumper trucks are needed, they would have to come from communities which, like Freeport, sit on the northern shore of the Allegheny.
Ladder trucks with water canons were used in February when the former Freeport Brick Co. — now RISG Refractory and Industrial Supply Group — caught fire. About 150 firefighters from the four counties battled that blaze.
It took about the same number of volunteers to rescue people from the March 15, 2003, Fifth Street apartment house fire and extinguish that blaze.
Armstrong County Commissioner James Scahill said the state needs to make enough repairs so ambulances and fire trucks can use it. Then it needs to make further upgrades so commercial trucks don’t have to make long, costly detours, he said.
“To go from a 120-ton limit right to 3 tons — wow,” he said.
The bridge must be placed into the transportation improvement plan that would finance the repair phases. Scahill doesn’t want the immediate fix to be the only one made by the state.
“I don’t want to wake up five years from now and find out that this project hasn’t gone any place,” he said.