At the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, is the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. With a total of 446 bridges, Pittsburgh is fondly called the City of Bridges. As a city heavily dependent on bridge infrastructure, Pittsburgh was an ideal location for President Biden’s Friday, January 28, 2022, infrastructure law speech.

Unfortunately, hours before President Biden was scheduled to arrive in Pittsburgh, Fern Hollow Bridge near Frick Park collapsed. The bridge was last inspected on September 29, 2021, receiving a grading of 4 out of 9. When President Biden was cleared to enter Pittsburgh he discussed his new infrastructure law that would see the country’s overall infrastructure rating of a C brought up to modern standards. “This is the first time in the country’s history that we dedicated a national program to repair and upgrade bridges,” Biden said. “It’s about time.”

Bridges need to be inspected regularly, a massive undertaking for a city like Pittsburgh. But, as was proven true with the last Fern Hollow Bridge inspection, greater detail is paramount. Pittsburgh City Councilman, Corey O’Conner, said that he had been contacted by several local companies willing to step up to the plate with the best technology to get the job done, drones. One such local company that has already begun using drones to inspect Pittsburgh’s bridges is Aeras.

Founded by Justin Melanson, Eric Lloyd, Nick Brucker, and Jim Abel in 2020, Aeras made a name for themselves by developing a drone system to disinfect and sanitize large areas during the height of the COVID19 pandemic. Using a charged-electrostatic spraying system, Aeras was the first drone company in the US to be FAA approved for the sanitation of outdoor arenas, such as the 2021 Kentucky Derby. Since then, Aeras has quickly become one of the leading drone solution providers in the Pittsburgh area.

On February 1, 2022, Justin was on site at the 40th Street Bridge in Millvale to begin scanning the bridge with a drone. Unlike a human inspection of a bridge that gives an overall view, a drone covers every bit of the bridge to the highest degree. “What we’re able to do by scanning these bridges is provide thousands of photos,” Justin said. “About 5 hours later you have a very precise high quality 3D model of the bridge.” The drones are then used to reinspect the bridges on a regular schedule.

The images are stored in the cloud indefinitely and run through a computer program that can pick up the slightest changes in structural integrity. With a complete infrastructure database provided by drone imagery, Pittsburgh’s bridges can be maintained without fear of collapse. Justin said that it takes about 40 minutes to 3 hours to fully scan a bridge and that he believes he could scan all 446 of the city’s bridges in less than 1 month.

Speaking from Carnegie Mellon, President Biden said that the new infrastructure law would be allocating $1.6 billion to the restoration of Pittsburgh’s bridges. “We’re going to rebuild that bridge, along with thousands of other bridges in Pennsylvania and across the country because it’s in our interests for our own safety’s sake, and it generates commerce in a way that we can’t do now,” Biden said. “That’s part of how we’re going to build a better America.” With drones and government funding Pittsburgh will proudly maintain the moniker of the City of Bridges.

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