The Birmingham Bridge is Sinking

Friday morning I woke up at the usual un-Godly hour of 5:45am and flipped my radio dial from the most obnoxious station in Pittsburgh to the ever-pleasant NPR.

I find that waking up to absolutely mind-numbingly stupid DJs (who, like most dull and obnoxious DJs, fancy themselves more clever than they are - far more clever in this case), and plastic over-produced pop trash, provides pretty good motivation to actually get out of my bed so that I can change the station.

This system has worked to my advantage for years, with only slight modifications. (When I was in high school I had a complex alarm on my stereo that would, upon engaging, gradually climb to the volume it had been set to. At the time I had it set to -20 (negative 20) decibels and my motivation to get out of bed was to turn it off before it reached full volume so that my parents and neighbors would not want to kill me. What can I say? I know what I need get up in the morning.) Anyway, the point of this is that I was tired and glad to be listening to the ever-soothing NPR DJs describe the latest in both culture and global atrocities.

At about 5:50am, while I was still in a good bit of a daze, I heard the DJ state that the Birmingham Bridge was closed. "Impossible" I thought to myself and went into the kitchen to turn on the tea kettle. I sauntered back into my bedroom to start dressing myself for the dog's morning walk when I heard it again (something to the effect of): "The outbound lanes of the Birmingham Bridge are completely closed down as engineers assess a structural concern that was discovered early this morning."

Whaaaaaaat?


Impossible.


As a resident of this city, I absolutely despise when people refer to major roadways through "inbound" and "outbound" designations because, much like the system of when to pay your bus fare (sometimes it's entering the bus, other times it's exiting the bus -- and yes, yes, I know when to do what now), it makes no sense. Finally another DJ explained it in a way that made me realize I had absolutely no idea how I was going to get to work.

I called PAT customer service and the conversation went as follows:

Customer Service: Hello, Port Authority customer service.
Me (cheerily): Hi, I heard the Birmingham Bridge is closed...
CS: We don't know anything until we have the foreman report!
Me: Huh? Well...Okay, if I were to get onto the 54c right now, where would it take me?
CS: I don't know.
Me: Is the 54c running?
CS: Well, yeah.

Dear PAT, you have once again been the absolute epitome of help. I can only equate this to the time I took the bus to a 5K, and, because of the 5K the bus was taking a detour, when I tried to ask the driver what kind of detour we were taking she repeatedly told me "I'll tell you when to get off," and because I knew that I wanted to warm-up before the race, this was absolutely useless and quite frustrating.

So I weighed my options and decided that it was better to get onto a bus not knowing where it was going* (with a seemingly small chance of making it to work on time) than it was to wait for the fella to take me to work (with a 100% chance of not getting into work when I wanted to).

The buses were, not surprisingly, pretty devoid of passengers as most were either delayed by the snow (oh yeah, it had snowed the night before), or had decided to find alternate transportation in order to avoid the SINKING BRIDGE (I'll get to this later).

When I boarded the 54c one of my favorite drivers was driving and when I asked him what detour we were taking he didn't really know but he said "You get off at ----, right? I'll make sure I get you there." And I laughed and thanked him and told him I'd called customer service and he excitedly (and not joking) asked me if they had told me what he was supposed to do, and when I said no he looked a bit disappointed but smiled and reminded me that I would get to work.

The majority of the people on the bus had absolutely no idea that the bridge was closed and were startled when the driver whipped past it and headed downtown (taking us on a crazzzzzy detour). After finally getting us across the river, the driver decided the best thing would be for him to drop us 4 blocks from the normal stop and have us walk the rest of the way so that he could keep his route as close to normal as possible, and while this was absolutely fine for me, it was definitely harder for some of the older folks and one, in particular, who had a cane (and I don't blame the driver, I blame PAT for not having an established/ better detour system in place).


So, ironically, because so few people were on the bus, and because I was able to catch an earlier transfer (partly because of the lack of people and partly because the bus before the one I usually catch was running a bit late), I got to work right on time (the world is a funny, funny place sometimes).

My coworkers, however, were not so lucky. I was only the second person into my office and I am usually the 5th or 6th (and those who arrive before me are usually on their second cup of coffee by the time I get there).

I talked, at length, with my (only other present) coworker about the bridge (I realize this may sound minor but when there is some sort of mysterious damage done to one of your city's major-thoroughfares - one you use daily, no less, well it's a pretty bid deal) and we both realized we knew almost nothing.

As it turns out (after many, many vague and ambiguous statements by many, many PR reps) a portion of the bridge had suddenly fallen almost 8 full inches, and this was noticed and reported by a civilian who called 911! Holy crap, did the bridge drop while he was driving/walking on it!? Did he just happen to look up and see the Birmingham Bridge sink into the Mon?!

"They" think it's because of our wacky weather ups and downs (that sounds like something a local meteorologist would say) and the frequent sudden expansions and contractions of the rocker beams. (I have no idea what a rocker beam is, but I saw it written in the paper repeatedly).

So what in the world does this all mean? I really have no idea. The only conclusion I can come to is that had this person not noticed this drop by sheer luck or coincidence, we could have had another Minnesota bridge tragedy. I guess it's just really bothersome that the only reason anyone knew about this was by luck. I'm not one of those people who believes that things work themselves out for the betterment of all (things work themselves out in certain ways, but if history has taught us anything it's that public safety is a pretty haphazard beast). I'm upset that Penndot and the Department of Public Works (or whoever is responsible for helping Penndot keep an eye on this stuff) didn't even know this was a possibility!

Actually, I take that back. How could they not? After Minnesota, some organization somewhere (I don't remember who or where) mandated that all of the safety assessments of bridges be released to the public. So, here we are knowing we, Pennsylvanians, travel on more than 6,000 structurally deficient bridges (the highest number in the country) each day, but what choice do we have? For people like me who ride the bus (and can't choose buses that take different routes) the answer, I guess, is that we have no choice except to cross our fingers and hope that good samaritans continue to call 911 when they see that one of our bridges is sinking.

Another thing that bothers me is how this person noticed the problem with the bridge. Did they actually see a break in the construction of the bridge, or did they notice part of the roadway sink, or one of the supports sink? The only situation in which I can plausibly imagine myself calling 911 over the fact that a bridge might be breaking is if I were driving on it and the road sank underneath me. If I were just looking at the road, and thought I saw it shift or sink, especially in the early, early morning (meaning at least an our or two before I was awake), I'd definitely blame it on my imagination and not call the police. I bet a lot of people feel the same way, and that is also bothersome because it makes the luck of the near-miss even greater.

Anyway, the bottom line is that the Birmingham Bridge is sinking, and to whoever it was that took it upon themselves to call 911, I'd like to say "thanks."

This is a link to Penn Dot's info on PA bridge assessment:

http://www.dot.state.pa.us/Internet/web.nsf/Secondary?OpenFrameset&Frame=main&src=InfoBridge?openform


Sample news report on Friday**:

PITTSBURGH -- Early Friday morning, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation officials closed the outbound (southbound) lanes of the Birmingham Bridge for an emergency bridge inspection.Around 10:30 a.m., all lanes of the bridge were forced to shut down after a possible structural concern was identified. The on-ramps from Fifth Avenue and Forbes Avenue are also closed.PennDOT spokesman Jim Struzzi told Channel 11 they received a call overnight from a maintenance worker who noticed a drop in one of the bridge spans. Struzzi said at first it appeared that one of the rocker bearings that supports the beam and deck of the bridge slipped, causing the road to drop seven inches where the outbound ramp leads to the bridge. But further inspection showed that the beam which holds the pad and rocker has fallen onto the bridge pier.Bridge engineers and PennDOT officials are working to figure out if the pier moved and caused the damage, or if it was a beam failure.The bridge will be closed until further notice.

* - I'll be the first to admit I was also quite curious and just the slightest bit adventure-hungry.

** - As is clear from this WPXI news brief, some news sources reported that it was only 7 inches and that it was a maintenance worker who discovered the drop. Most reports I heard said something like 7 3/4 inches (which I rounded to 8) and that it was a passerby who called 911.