Headline Roundup • January 28th, 2022
Bridge Collapses Hours Before Biden Infrastructure Speech
Domestic Policy,Joe Biden,Infrastructure,Infrastructure Bill,Economic Policy,Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania,Disaster,General News
Summary from the AllSides News Team
A snow-covered bridge in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania collapsed on Friday just hours before President Joe Biden was scheduled to visit the city to speak about the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
At least 10 people sustained non-life threatening injuries in the bridge collapse. “We saw today, when a bridge is in disrepair, it literally can threaten lives,” Biden said, adding, “We’re gonna rebuild that bridge, along with thousands of other bridges in Pennsylvania and across the country.” The $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, which the president signed into law in November, invests $40 billion over five years to repair bridges that are in “fair or poor” condition.
Some coverage from the right focused on a specific Biden quote: “I knew there were a lot of bridges … And we’re gonna fix them all.” A Fox News (Right) homepage headline said Biden made a “huge promise.” Some coverage from the left drew a direct connection between the collapse and Biden’s infrastructure bill; a Guardian (Lean Left) article opened with the line, “It would be hard to imagine a more dramatic way to illustrate the need for investment in U.S. infrastructure.”
Featured Coverage of this Story
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
President Joe Biden made an unscheduled visit to the site of a bridge collapse in Pittsburgh on Friday afternoon, during a trip originally meant to tout his legislative agenda — including the landmark infrastructure law he signed last year.
“We saw today, when a bridge is in disrepair, it literally can threaten lives,” Biden said in a speech at Carnegie Mellon University’s Mill 19, just a few miles from the collapsed bridge.
The bridge, said Biden, “had been rated in poor condition for the past 10 years.”
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Andrew Harnik/AP Photo
President Joe Biden on Friday touted the bipartisan infrastructure package that he signed into law in November, while also addressing the dramatic bridge collapse in Pittsburgh that occurred just hours before he arrived in the city.
Fern Hollow Bridge near Frick Park, the site of the collapse, had been rated in "poor condition" for the last 10 years, Biden said. Across the country, 45,000 bridges are in poor condition, a number Biden called "unacceptable."
Alexandra Wimley/Post-Gazette
The second visit to Pittsburgh of Joe Biden’s presidency — this one touting his administration’s investment into the nation’s crumbling infrastructure — came as the city continued to reel from one of its bridges collapsing Friday morning.
Mr. Biden, a Scranton native, stopped at the site of the bridge collapse in Frick Park shortly after landing at Allegheny County Airport in West Mifflin, before heading to Hazelwood’s Mill 19 on Friday afternoon. The Hazelwood visit was planned earlier this week but took on a new importance after the bridge collapse.
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