President Joe Biden will speak near the site of the Fern Hollow Bridge Thursday afternoon, talking about infrastructure at the site where the bridge collapsed just before he visited the city in January.
A statement from the White House says Biden will "highlight how this bridge is symbolic of many other bridges and infrastructure across the country in need of repair, and the impact that his Administration’s historic investments through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are having.” Passed last November, the bill is a massive 10-year spending plan for projects that range from transportation upgrades to an expansion of electric-vehicle capacity, internet broadband and water systems.
Biden will travel to the city’s East End from the Pittsburgh International Airport, where he is expected to land around lunchtime. Motorists should expect rolling roadblocks and delays along the route.
Biden’s last visit to the site came during a trip on which he’d already been scheduled to talk about infrastructure and just hours after the bridge’s January 28 collapse. “We’re going to rebuild that bridge along with thousands of other bridges in Pennsylvania and across the country,” he pledged at the time.
When he returns this afternoon, he can say that state, local and federal officials have gone a long way toward delivering on that pledge.
Construction of the four-lane replacement span is expected to be complete this winter – a rapid turnaround time for a structure of that size. (The White House said rebuilding such a bridge would ordinarily take between two and five years.) The project is receiving $25.3 million in federal funds. The money did not come from the infrastructure package directly, though the White House says the law’s passage allowed the state “to move funds quickly to support this project, without having to slow down or interfere with other projects.”
In all, the infrastructure law includes $40 billion in funding for bridge improvements and construction over five years. Pennsylvania expects to receive $1.6 billion of that funding.
This afternoon’s visit is just the latest in a long list of Biden’s sojourns to western Pennsylvania, and it’s his third trip this year. He most recently returned to the city to celebrate Labor Day at a West Mifflin union hall.
Slated to attend Biden’s remarks Thursday are Senator Bob Casey, Congressional representatives Mike Doyle and Conor Lamb, Gov. Tom Wolf, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, and Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey.
Although the visit comes less than three weeks before Election Day, it is an official White House event rather than a political gathering. Still, Biden is scheduled to attend a reception in Philadelphia later today with Fetterman, who is in a closely fought US Senate race against Republican Mehmet Oz. That race could determine control of the Senate for the remainder of Biden’s term, and thus the prospects for the rest of Biden's agenda.
And in election season, political considerations are close at hand no matter what the event. Biden talked up his infrastructure bill on Wednesday, for example, and after discussing its investments in electric vehicles, noted that some Republicans had voted against the bill as a big-government boondoggle.
“Now quietly and privately, they’re sending me and the administration letters asking for money from the same bill talking about how important the projects would be for their districts if we just got them the money,” Biden said. “I was really surprised to find out there were so many socialists in the Republican caucus.”
