Updated on May 10, 2021 at 11:41 pm
Fire crews in Chester County divert around closed bridges adding minutes to response times.
“For somebody who’s waiting on the fire department or an ambulance to arrive, a minute means a lot,” Keystone Valley Fire Chief Brian Gathercole said. PennDOT plans to spend $7.2 billion repairing or replacing 1,460 of the Commonwealth’s deteriorating bridges. An NBC10 investigation found more than 4,200 in need of repair in the Keystone State. Faulty bridges and roads add big bucks to drivers costs every year. NBC10 s Mitch Blacher has the story.
Gathercole’s department serves Parkesburg Borough, which is the only municipality in the five county Philadelphia Metro with two closed bridges. The bridges on East and West Bridge street closed in the mid 1990’s when state engineers deemed them unsafe for traffic.