Troubled floodgate system set for more work

First the automated floodgates on Washington Boulevard wouldn’t work at all.

Then it cost Pittsburgh about $42,000 to get the Highland Park traffic system back up and running, along with spare parts.

Now the city is facing some $50,000 in additional repairs and improvements following a partial failure last week, nearly nine months after the total breakdown in August, Mayor Bill Peduto’s administration reported Wednesday. Mr. Peduto said the city would investigate replacing the $450,000 system if upkeep expenses turn untenable.

“It’s really a judgment at this point whether the money is better spent trying to get the system to operate properly or better spent just scrapping it and putting in a new system,” he said late Tuesday, before his office shared the latest cost estimate.

Mr. Peduto said the city should make that determination by year’s end. “Really, the question is, do we want to have a constant problem with something that should be as simple as a gate dropping and lights flashing?”

The state Department of Transportation installed the equipment after a flood there killed four people in August 2011. With three swinging-arm gates and several caution signals in the low-slung area of Washington, Allegheny River and Negley Run boulevards, the setup is meant to steer drivers away from high water during heavy rain.

But swing arms failed to drop Aug. 28, when motorists had to be rescued from flash flooding.

for the system had been set to “off.” Reviewers spotted additional problems such as a faulty radio, deficient controller devices and electrical issues.

Bronder Technical Services of Prospect restored the system, for which the city assumed responsibility last summer. City officials declared the equipment operational in March.

Last week, however, the gate at Washington and Allegheny River boulevards would not close when police used a manual switch in stormy weather. The other gates engaged.

A review found no electricity in the failed gate, tracing the problem to an adjacent wiring issue, said Daniel Shak, a city technology manager. He said workers have since rewired the problem area.

“Everything tested fine” there afterward, Mr. Shak said.

A full system test is scheduled for 4 a.m. Thursday. Portions of Washington Boulevard and Highland Drive should be closed for no more than 90 minutes, according to Mr.Peduto’s office.

Next, the city will look into new, separate power lines for the whole system to avoid future problems, said Guy Costa, the chief operations office. The gates now share power lines with nearby street lights, which has provenproblematic, he said.

City officials also are considering constant monitoring devices to verify that the gates are operational, along with a service contract for regular system checks, they said. Mr. Costa estimated the improvements, along with contracted work since last week, should run a combined $50,000.

“We’re going to do what’s right to make sure this system works properly,” he said. “And if this system doesn’t work after all this, then we’re going to have to look” at replacement.

Mr. Costa said the city will meet next week with the equipment’s manufacturer, California-based High Sierra Electronics, to discuss next steps. The city acknowledged in August that the system had not been fully inspected for about three years amid onagain, off-again communicationswith PennDOT.

“We’re trying to do everything we can to make sure it’s functional and operational. But everything that we’ve done so far — there’s still been issues that have come up,” said Wendell Hissrich, the city public safety director. He called last week’s trouble “inexcusable.”

Even if the gates fail, Mr. Hissrich said, police will barricade locations nearby to discourage drivers. He urged motorists to honor both those barricades and any closed gates, noting — in frustrated tones — that some drivers tried to defy the blockades last week.

“The public has to use some common sense,” he said.

For the longer term, city authoritiesare exploring state and federal sources to help pay for flooding-related infrastructure. Projects to tame storm water in the Washington Boulevard-Negley Run area alone could top $200 million and take years to complete, according to a Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority presentation in September.

Mr. Peduto said such work — not floodgates alone — should be the ultimate answer to high water on Washington Boulevard.

“There’s a lot of different complexities to this that really don’t need to be there,” he said of the current gate system. “We just need a gate to fall and lights to flash, and maybe don’t need all the bells and whistles.”