Tag Archives: highland park bridge

Bridge Madness – Elite Eight Allegheny & Ohio Round

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The results are in for the Allegheny and Ohio Bridges half of the Sweet Sixteen in 2023’s Bridge Madness Tournament. The tournament features bridges or groups of bridges that are accessible to vehicles and pedestrians. From east to west, these bridges on the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers are the Highland Park Bridge, the 62nd Street or R.D. Fleming Bridge, the 40th Street or Washington’s Crossing Bridge, the 31st Street Bridge, the 16th Street or David McCullough Bridge, the Three Sisters Bridges (6th Street, 7th Street, and 9th Street), the Fort Duquesne Bridge, and the West End Bridge.

Bracket 1 was the West End Bridge (80%) vs. the 62nd Street Bridge (20%).

Bracket 2 was Fort Duquesne Bridge (52%) vs. the 40th Street Bridge (48%).

Bracket 3 was the Three Sisters Bridges (92%) vs. the 31st Street Bridge (8%).

Bracket 4 was the 16th Street Bridge (77%) vs. the Highland Park Bridge (23%).

The winners in these brackets are matched up below for the Allegheny and Ohio Bridges half of the Elite Eight. Vote for your favorite bridges below by noon on March 20, then check back on March 21 for the Monongahela match-ups in the Elite Eight.

West End Bridge
Fort Duquesne Bridge
16th Street Bridge
Three Sisters Bridges

Bridge Madness – Sweet Sixteen Allegheny & Ohio Round

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The 2023 Bridge Madness Tournament kicks off with the Allegheny and Ohio Bridges half of the Sweet Sixteen. The tournament features bridges or groups of bridges that are accessible to vehicles and pedestrians. From east to west, these bridges on the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers are the Highland Park Bridge, the 62nd Street or R.D. Fleming Bridge, the 40th Street or Washington’s Crossing Bridge, the 31st Street Bridge, the 16th Street or David McCullough Bridge, the Three Sisters Bridges (6th Street, 7th Street, and 9th Street), the Fort Duquesne Bridge, and the West End Bridge. Vote for your favorite bridges below by noon on March 14, then check back on March 15 for the Monongahela match-ups in the Sweet Sixteen.

62nd Street Bridge
West End Bridge
40th Street Bridge
Fort Duquesne Bridge
31st Street Bridge
Three Sisters Bridges
16th Street Bridge
Highland Park Bridge

Bridge Madness 2023 – Introduction

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Rules

In the 2023 Bridge Madness Tournament, 16 bridges across Pittsburgh’s rivers go pier-to-pier in a reader’s choice tournament to pick the best one. The tournament features bridges or groups of bridges within the city limits that cross the Allegheny, Ohio, and Monongahela Rivers and that are accessible to vehicles and pedestrians. Beginning March 12, you will be able to vote for your favorite bridge in each bracket. The champion bridge will be announced on March 30.

The bridges are divided into two conferences: the Allegheny and Ohio Conference and the Monongahela Conference. From east to west, the bridges in the Allegheny and Ohio Conference are the Highland Park Bridge, the 62nd Street or R.D. Fleming Bridge, the 40th Street or Washington’s Crossing Bridge, the 31st Street Bridge, the 16th Street or David McCullough Bridge, the Three Sisters Bridges (6th Street, 7th Street, and 9th Street), the Fort Duquesne Bridge, and the West End Bridge. From east to west, the bridges in the Monongahela Conference are the Homestead Grays Bridge, the Glenwood Bridge, the joint Hot Metal Bridge and Monongahela Connecting Railroad Bridge, the Birmingham Bridge, the South 10th Street Bridge, the Liberty Bridge, the Smithfield Bridge, and the Fort Pitt Bridge.

Each round of voting will go live at 8 AM on the scheduled day and close at noon two days later. The following morning, the next round of voting will go live, until the winner is announced on March 30. The schedule is:

  • March 12 – Sweet Sixteen: Allegheny & Ohio Conference
  • March 15 – Sweet Sixteen: Monongahela Conference
  • March 18 – Elite Eight: Allegheny & Ohio Conference
  • March 21 – Elite Eight: Monongahela Conference
  • March 24 – Final Four (both conferences)
  • March 27 – Championship
  • March 30 – Winner announced

Allegheny & Ohio Conference Bridges

Monongahela Conference Bridges

Bridge Madness 2023 Map

Heth’s Run Bridge: Redux

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Heth’s Run Bridge, the first bridge I posted about in my Pittsburgh bridges project, is scheduled to be replaced by the end of next year.  The notice to proceed was expected to be issued last week with construction beginning on Sept. 24 with the installation of a temporary road around the bridge, through the zoo’s parking lot.  According to the schedule that was passed out at a community meeting at the end of August, the bridge is expected to close with all car traffic being diverted to the temporary road on Nov. 1st.  Due to the turning radius constraints with the temporary road, trucks will not be permitted and will instead be by way of the Highland Park Bridge, Route 28 and the 62nd Street Bridge.  If all goes according to schedule the bridge should reopen to all traffic on October 1, 2014.  Additional road work will continue through October.  After final inspections, the project is expected to be officially completed by December 8, 2014.

Heth's Run Bridge's hazardous sidewalk

This is a PennDOT project expected to cost over $18.5 million and is definitely needed.  As I discuss in my Heth’s Run Bridge Part II and Highland Park Bridge posts, the sidewalks here are in desperate need of repair and the proportion of sidewalk to road across the bridge is at least 50 years out of date.  All this is going to be addressed in the reconstruction.  The new bridge is going to have two lanes in each direction to match the roadway on either end.  Additional features of the new bridge will be decorative railing, period lighting, entrance pylons, and “architectural features on the abutments with form liners” (which I believe refers to new urns).  At the community meeting, it was mentioned that the current urns will be saved and kept in a warehouse until a new home is found for them.

In addition to the bridge, about 870 feet of Butler Street are going to be reconstructed including sidewalks.  My understanding is that this is the part of Butler from the Heth’s Run Bridge to the ramps of the Highland Park Bridge, which should take care of my complaints about the condition of the sidewalk for those of us trying to cross the Highland Park Bridge without a car.  This should also clear up the confusion for the outbound traffic of whether this part of the road is one lane or two as the plans include removing the “kink” from the existing alignment.

New signals and ADA ramps will be installed at the intersections of Butler with One Wild Place and with Baker Streets.

Another major part of the project is the excavation under the bridge to an elevation of 762.  According to GoogleEarth, the bridge is at an elevation of 800 ft. I’m not sure if this will restore the bridge to its exact historic height, but it will be close (see the photo of the previous bridge from 1912).  This will also pave the way for connecting this area to the proposed Allegheny Riverfront Green Boulevard project.

This project will no doubt cause some inconveniences during the construction process, but the construction of the temporary road will significantly cut down on this even though it adds over a month to the process.  Imagine instead, everyone having to go on the truck detour or all the Zoo traffic coming down Morningside Ave and Baker Street instead of One Wild Place and Butler Street.  That would be a true nightmare.  Thank you, PennDOT and the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium for the temporary road.  Thank you, PennDOT and any other funders, Sen. Jim Ferlo, Rep. Dom Costa, and anyone else who had a hand in helping bring about this long overdue project.

I can’t wait to walk over the new bridge when it’s finished!

More information about the project including the design of the temporary road can be found here: http://morningside-pa.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/hethsrunbridge.pdf

One River Down!!

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This week I officially crossed all the pedestrian accessible bridges in Pittsburgh across the Allegheny River.  I still have a few more to post about, but I’m so excited about having reached this milestone, I had to share it with my readers.  I finished the legwork and now just need to complete the fingerwork to be geographically one-third of the way to reach my goal for the summer.

Of the 20 bridges I initially identified as pedestrian accessible over the three rivers in Pittsburgh (see May 30th post), 10 cross the Allegheny River.  It turns out one of these that I identified wasn’t actually pedestrian accessible, though I posted about it anyway (see June 24th post).  However, it turns out that I missed a bridge on the Allegheny when picking them out on the map.  So I still crossed 10 out of 20 bridges.

I have been using the term pedestrian accessible because not all of the bridges I crossed were necessarily pedestrian friendly.  From the Point downtown up to the 31st Street Bridge (see July 19 post) the bridges were mostly pedestrian friendly.  The 31st Street Bridge begins to get a little dubious.  Farther upriver, while the bridges remain accessible, they are not particularly pedestrian friendly.  See Highland Park Bridge, Washington’s Crossing Bridge and The Last Allegheny River Bridge posts.