A section of the Broad Street Bridge pedestrian walkway by South Avenue collapsed Friday morning in downtown Rochester.
Crews report that around 8 or 9 am, an 80 foot section of the 44 year old bridge separated from the structure. A few concrete pieces fell into the Genesee River below, and the rest remain hanging off of the side.
That section of the bridge had already been closed to pedestrian use of the sidewalk due to prior construction, and no contractors were working in this area at the time of the collapse.
City Engineer for the City of Rochester Jim McIntosh said they are not quite sure what caused the collapse, but he suspects that construction took its toll on this cantilevered section of the bridge.
"We think it’s something to do with construction activity, which involved jack hammering and taking old concrete off and something we were doing there, vibration or something, caused that to happen."
McIntosh insists that the bridge is safe and the road will remain open.
"That’s really the only place we had an issue. The rest of the bridge, the beams under the bridge are fine. We're doing our repairs on the bridge deck and the beams to try and get another 20 or 30 years out of the project."
McIntosh says a meeting will be held Monday to attempt to figure out what caused the bridge to collapse, before they put any contractors back on the bridge to continue the ongoing structural repairs.
Crews are now knocking down the remaining hanging pieces, and intend to clean those up over the next couple of weeks. They also plan to install shoring under the bridge as a precautionary measure, adding more support.