(CNSNews.com) - Even with a teleprompter to read from, President Biden sometimes can't get it right.
Speaking in Pittsburgh on Friday, Biden began by mentioning the collapse of the city's Forbes Avenue Bridge over Fern Hollow Creek. Four vehicles plunged off the road, injuring ten people.
"Before I begin, let me just talk a little bit about what we all just saw — many of us saw this morning," Biden said.
A bridge more than 50 years old — a hundred — I think it 150 years; it says “50 years old,” but I thought it was older — collapsed right here in Pittsburgh. It had been rated in “poor” condition for the past 10 years.
What you all know — if you don’t, you should know — there are another 3,300 bridges here in Pennsylvania, some of which are just as old and just as decrepit — decrepit condition as that bridge was, including here in Pittsburgh, the “City of Bridges.”
I’ve been coming to Pittsburgh a long time. I’m a Pennsylvania kid. I was born and raised, the first part of my life in Pennsylvania, and I’ve been to Pittsburgh a lot. But all these years, I never knew — I never knew Pennsylvania — Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, had more bridges than any other city in the world. Yo!
But across the country, there are 45,000 bridges in “poor” condition. It’s just simply unacceptable. That’s why your governor, and your members of Congress, your mayor have been saying for years that we have to do something about this.
Biden said the collapsed bridge "along with thousands of others bridges in Pennsylvania and across the country" will be rebuilt.
The scope of the problem is enormous.
According to Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board: "Of the 618,456 bridges in the United States, 47.7 percent are rated 'fair.'' Seven-point-3 percent are rated 'poor.' of the 22,965 bridges in Pennsylvania, 52.8 percent are rated fair and 14.6 percent are rated poor. So this is a call to action," she said on Friday.
The 447-foot-long Forbes Avenue Bridge, built in 1970 of rigid steel construction, was rated in overall 'poor' condition by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
