At least ten people have been injured this Friday after the collapse of a bridge due to snow in Pittsburgh, in the western state of Pennsylvania, hours before a scheduled visit by the president of the United States, Joe Biden, to talk about the package of infrastructure.
“I’ve been coming to Pittsburgh for a long time as a former Pennsylvania resident. But I didn’t realize there are literally more bridges in Pittsburgh than any other city in the world. Did you know? More than Venice,” Biden said after attending. to Fern Hollow, the place where the bridge has collapsed.
The mayor of Pittsburgh, Ed Gainey, has confirmed in a press conference this Friday that there have been no deaths, while the city’s fire chief, Darryl Jones, has reported that the injuries have been “minor”, although three people have had to be transferred due to injuries.
Pittsburgh City Councilman Corey O’Connor has noted that “it is fortunate” that the collapse did not occur later, when there would likely be much more traffic on the bridge.
“If this had happened an hour later, this is a road that probably gets around 15,000 cars a day, and if it was a later rush hour, we’d be seeing a couple of hundred cars in that valley,” he said in a statement. interview with the American chain CNN.
The Forbes Avenue Bridge over Frick Park, built in 1970 over a main artery through which citizens go downtown, was in poor condition and has not been included in the list of federal funds for infrastructure, according to NBC News. .
“There are 3,300 other bridges here in Pennsylvania, some of which are as old and as decrepit as that bridge, even here in Pittsburgh in the ‘City of Bridges,'” Biden has said, adding that the infrastructure project entails 1.6 billion dollars for bridges –1.4 billion euros–, according to a White House statement.
The US Congress approved the infrastructure plan in November, which will deliver 550 billion dollars –493 billion dollars– in new federal investments for infrastructure in the United States over five years.
The initiative, which seeks to put the country back in the international competitive vanguard for the next few decades, was approved by the Senate in August but was blocked for months due to difficulties in reaching an agreement between representatives of the Democratic Party.
This investment will be used to promote the recovery of highways and roads, bridges, railways, the electricity grid, water systems, airports or public transport.
