This past weekend was a big one for the word “infrastructure.” The collapse of the Fern Hollow Bridge early Friday morning happened on the very same day. President Joe Biden’s visit about the Build Back Better plan put infrastructure in the forefront of everyone’s minds.

Infrastructure is one of those things that’s easy to forget about. It’s the type of thing that you only ever notice whenever you’re having issues with it. When driving on a road that is well maintained, you never think, “this road is a really nice and well paved road” but when driving on a road with a lot of potholes you’ll likely think to yourself, “this road is terrible.”

That’s, to an extent, what happened with the Fern Hollow Bridge collapse. Experts have been warning of Pittsburgh’s bridges needing maintenance for years, but unfortunately those warnings went unacknowledged. It may be easy to mentally write this off as an isolated incident, not unlike the bus sinkhole incident. But what happens when the next bridge collapses? Had the bridge collapsed later in the day instead of early in the morning, the disaster could have been a tragedy.

Infrastructure doesn’t just apply to roads, and it doesn’t just apply to things that the government does. Point Park also has infrastructure problems that need to be addressed. For example, many buildings have been having issues with heating this semester. The Boulevard Apartments have also recently run into some issues with their sprinkler systems. While these things may be costly to fix, that cost is worth it in the long run.

That same mentality applies to the infrastructure of the City of Pittsburgh. According to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, there are 175 bridges in Allegheny County rated as being in poor condition. Repairing 175 bridges will no doubt be incredibly costly to fix, but the reality of the situation is that we need to fix them. We cannot only talk about fixing our city’s infrastructure when bad things happen.

So what do we as students, professors and staff members do about this crisis? After all, we all live in Allegheny County (during the academic year at least). We are just as impacted by any infrastructure failings. Write to local legislators to make them prioritize this as an issue. Go to council meetings and make your voice heard. Because the infrastructure of today, if it stays this way, will certainly be worse—if not dangerous—years down the line.