Pole falls off Pittsburgh's new Commercial Street Bridge, nearly hitting car below

The Commercial Street Bridge on Pittsburgh's Parkway East is only a few months old, but it's making headlines again after a pole fell off the bridge over the weekend and almost hit a car below.

According to Swisshelm Forward's Vicki Yann, a husband and wife were about to drive under the bridge on Commercial Street when the wife saw the pole start to fall. After yelling at her husband, they were able to stop about 20 feet from the pole.

"I'm just glad that nobody got hurt," Swisshelm Forward secretary Vicki Yann said.

The neighborhood group says it's concerned, as this is the second mishap with the bridge and its construction. Just after the demolition of the old bridge in July, unexploded dynamite detonated. No one was hurt. 

"Who's paying attention to what and what is going to happen next? I really don't want three to be a charm and there be a fatality," Yann said.

PennDOT says a subcontractor accidentally backed into the pole as crews were preparing for a consultant bridge inspection. It said this is not a cause for concern about the bridge structure.

"I think that PennDOT really needs to kind of do some communication with the neighborhood to say what they're doing to make sure that accidents like this don't happen again," Yann said.

Yann said she learned the cause of the accident from KDKA. PennDOT had not given a response to her neighborhood group by the time KDKA's story aired. 

For drivers, seeing something like this happen is not giving them confidence to drive underneath it.

"I'll probably go faster underneath the bridge, which isn't the most ideal way of approaching this," Yann said.

PennDOT is talking with the subcontractor and consultant and guarantees any new necessary protocols will be added to make sure this doesn't happen again. The couple that witnessed everything is currently out of town and wasn't available to talk to KDKA.