Pay the fines
PennDOT should take a firm stand on bridge fire
The state Department of Transportation is demonstrating low regard for public safety — and sending a bad message to its contractors — by allowing the Joseph B. Fay Co. to do an end run around more than $3 million in penalties the company incurred for a fire that shut down the Liberty Bridge for 24 days last fall.
PennDOT is allowing the company to trade the penalties for an easing of traffic restrictions on the bridge while the $80 million rehabilitation project continues. Fay erased $1.25 million in penalties by reducing to 80 from 132 the number of days the bridge’s Boulevard of the Allies ramps were closed. It will receive an $800,000 credit for reducing to 10 from 26 the number of full overnight bridge closures. It will wipe away $560,000 by eliminating two weeks of one-way traffic in each direction on the span. And so on.
James Foringer, acting executive for District 11, said this is the first time in his 30 years with PennDOT that agency officials in the Pittsburgh area have allowed a contractor to offset financial penalties in this way. That speaks to how ill-advised an agreement this is. It is no surprise that Fay was the party that proposed it. What contractor wants to pay $3 million in fines?
PennDOT championed the agreement as a win for motorists, but it isn’t so clear cut. To make up for the restrictions it is trading away, Fay needs others. The agreement allows it to increase the scheduled number of overnight inbound closures to 26 from zero and the number of weekend closures to 11 from five. While the new restrictions may be less onerous to motorists than those Fay ceded, the whole thing smacks of a shell game. The project completion date remains June 2018, the same as before.
If PennDOT Secretary Leslie S. Richards knew of this agreement, Gov. Tom Wolf should fire her. State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale should review the agreement to determine whether there is fairness to the math PennDOT used to determine the value of the traffic restrictions Fay agreed to trade back.
The Sept. 2 fire started when hot slag from a steel-cutting operation ignited construction materials on a temporary platform under the bridge. The fire caused so much damage to a support chord that PennDOT closed the bridge, a major artery, for 24 days for fear it would collapse. Using documents obtained from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Post-Gazette’s Ed Blazina reported that similar, smaller fires had broken out on Aug. 30 and Sept. 1 and that a “fire watch” was removed hours before the Sept. 2 blaze. The smaller blazes were not reported up Fay’s chain of command or to PennDOT.
The debacle was a sign for PennDOT’s need to better monitor its contractors. It also signaled Fay’s need to exercise more oversight of its project, and PennDOT should drive home the point by imposing a steep fine. Instead, it’s sending the message that safety issues can be bartered away — hardly a cautionary tale for Fay or other contractors.
Fay will cover all $5.8 million in emergency repair costs caused by the fire, as it should. At issue here are the additional $3 million in penalties. Mr. Foringer argued that Fay could have challenged the penalties in court and won. But fear of a legal battle is no reason to abandon the high ground. Such skittishness is another bad message to send to contractors, who have to be kept in line.
If PennDOT is appalled by the bridge fire, it has a funny way of showing it.