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ABC Bridges in the Poconos

The collapse of a 950-ton bridge in Miami has people in our area wanting a closer look at bridges in our area that are designed to be built quickly. The bridge ...

The collapse of a 950-ton bridge in Miami has people in our area wanting a closer look at bridges in our area that are designed to be built quickly.

The bridge spanned a busy road through the heart of Florida International Unversity. It was pre-fabricated in a process called "accelerated bridge construction," or ABC.

Some are expressing concerns over similar spans around here.

Construction crews rebuilt a bridge on Route 534 near Albrightsville last summer. It took three days.

About 30 miles away in Monroe County, another accelerated bridge construction, or ABC bridge, spans Stony Creek in Price Township. Two years ago crews rebuilt the 80-year-old bridge in less than a week.

PennDOT says the 33 ABC bridges in Pennsylvania save drivers from long detours and protect construction crews from working in traffic for weeks or months.

In Florida, it was an ABC bridge that collapsed on Thursday killing at least six.

While that pedestrian bridge in Florida and the traffic bridges in the Poconos are part of the same ABC program, PennDOT points out their construction methods are very different.

A PennDOT spokesman says the agency inspects all bridges thoroughly adding, "we will await findings about the cause of the tragic collapse in Florida and look for any lessons to be learned. It is premature to draw any comparisons."

Drivers like Joanna Osada don't worry about crossing the ABC bridge near Albrightsville. It replaced one built on the same site in 1938. In 2015, PennDOT inspectors gave it a 7 rating on a scale of 0 to 100 a year before it was rebuilt (100 being entirely sufficient and 0 being entirely insufficient or deficient).

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