PennDOT campaign aims to stop tall vehicles from hitting bridges

Every year, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation allocates hundreds of millions of dollars to maintain and upgrade more than 25,000 bridges across the state.

That money is earmarked to handle normal wear and tear caused by traffic and age, items that can be routinely planned and scheduled.

The department can’t program for the unexpected, such as damage caused by vehicles crashing into each other on bridges or crashing into the bridges. But the agency — in conjunction with 19 other East Coast states — has developed a campaign it hopes will reduce or eliminate one particular kind of unexpected event: bridges damaged by vehicles that are too tall for the spans they are trying to cross, something that happened more than 600 times in the state between 2013 and 2023.

PennDOT and the Eastern Transportation Coalition kicked off the “Check your height, know it’s right” campaign last week to encourage drivers to know the height of the truck, RV or other vehicle they are driving. The campaign includes a tool kit with a mobile app that will show drivers the height of all the bridges on the route they plan to drive so they can avoid hitting bridges that can’t accommodate their vehicle.

In a news release announcing the program, PennDOT Secretary Mike Carroll encouraged drivers not to simply rely on their navigation app to choose their route. Those apps don’t account for the height of the vehicle drivers are using, so they won’t avoid bridges that are too low.

“Drivers must know their vehicle height and watch for signage indicating bridge heights,” Carroll said. “If you are driving a commercial vehicle, a delivery or moving truck, or an RV, do not rely on your navigation app. Check the height of your vehicle and know it’s right.”

Carroll stressed that bridge strikes can take money away from other needed repairs.

“Each of these bridge strikes takes funding away from other projects and often involves resources from our emergency response partners,” he said.

In recent years, overheight vehicles caused enough damage to two bridges in PennDOT’s District 11 (Allegheny, Lawrence and Beaver counties) to close them for more than three months.

On April 1, 2021, a too-tall vehicle damaged the superstructure on a span of the Mitchell Road bridge over Interstate 376 in Neshannock Township, Lawrence County. The bridge, which had been hit numerous times before, had a minimum clearance of 14 feet, 4 inches.

It remained open until emergency repairs began in early August to replace one span and raise the clearance to 15 feet, 9 inches at a cost of $2.1 million. It reopened in early November.

In early February 2022, a vehicle that was too tall struck the Rosslyn Road bridge that serves as an on-ramp to the Parkway West. The bridge, which has a clearance of 14 feet, 10 inches, was closed until Sept. 18 for heat straightening and plate repairs that cost $565,324.

The campaign to encourage drivers to know the height of the vehicle they are driving began in New York and was adopted by the Eastern Transportation Coalition, 20 states and Washington, D.C., that have joined together to work on common transportation issues. It prepared a tool kit for drivers in an effort to reduce the number of bridge strikes.

Pennsylvania previously had taken a number of steps to reduce bridge strikes, including in the past 10 years raising the clearance of more than 160 bridges by at least 3 inches if the clearance was lower than 16 feet, 5 inches. Additionally, the state requires anyone driving a vehicle needing clearance of more than 13 feet, 6 inches to apply for a special hauling permit, and all bridges with clearance of 14 feet, 6 inches or lower have signs posted at the bridge and on roads approaching the bridge.

It also identifies all bridges with clearance of 13 feet, 6 inches or lower at 511PA and has a mobile app that will provide audio alerts when approaching bridges with low clearance.