Why Did Joe Biden Blow Up This Pittsburgh Bridge?

Joe's up! Let's watch.

With Joe Biden planning a trip to Pittsburgh today to talk about infrastructure and the work that will be paid for by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, a bridge in that city collapsed this morning. Fortunately, as of now, only minor injuries to 10 people have been reported. First responders got to the scene quickly, and while we were listening to a livestream of the local coverage, the anchors mentioned that a bus that had been on the snow-covered bridge was actually outbound from the city center, and therefore had few people on it. Pittsburgh Fire Chief Darryl Jones says the three people who were hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries were on the bus. WMUR-TV reports that the bus was apparently held back from falling 100 feet into the ravine by part of the debris of the ruined roadway that folded up behind the bus. Some vehicles did fall into the ravine, however.

The bridge collapsed before the height of rush hour and peak traffic, so that's good news as well. Pennsylvania Lt. Governor John Fetterman said from the collapse site, "This could have been much worse. We were fortunate that there was a public school delay and the traffic could have been much more pronounced."

Biden's trip to Pittsburgh was delayed slightly by news of the bridge collapse, but he's still planning to deliver remarks on the infrastructure bill, whose first tranche of funds, as it happens, are going to repair bridges all over the country. Roughly 220,000 bridges need repair, and some 8,000 of them should be replaced altogether. This is one of those things where putting off government spending really can put lives at risk.

Biden may or may not be visiting the site of the bridge collapse, depending on the state of rescue/recovery operations as the day goes forward.

Here is your WonkTV livestream of the president's remarks.

 youtu.be 

Let's all take a few minutes to remind ourselves that government is what we do to make sure the roads don't fall apart under our buses, and that if a disaster like that does happen, there'll be rescue crews and ambulances and hospitals to help. It's something that only one of this country's parties seems to be interested in these days.

[ CBS Pittsburgh / WMUR-TV ]

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