Walking around downtown Buffalo, I encountered several murals. They were all placed where the built environment would have otherwise created a drab or unpleasant experience. Three were on the sides of buildings bordered by parking lots. One was along both sides of the tunnel created by Seneca One, a 1970s tower built over Main Street. The mural along Main Street was particularly appealing. Usually walking along a road that passes underneath a building is a dark and dingy experience. This mural brightened up the space and created a distraction for the whole block. As Main Street is one of the possible pedestrian connections to the Canalside waterfront area, placing a mural here was a great decision to help make the approach more palatable. There are plenty more unpleasant places to pass before reaching the water.
LeapFrog! was a fundraiser in Erie, PA, in 2004. There is so much to see on “We are the Future…Let us LEAP” by Erie School District High School Art Students and Teachers. In 2023, we found this frog in front of the Erie Public School building thanks to Amy H.’s map of Erie’s frogs.
LeapFrog! was a fundraiser in Erie, PA, in 2004. “Infinity Frogs” by Tom Tucker was beyond our walkshed when Shelly and I were searching for frogs in 2023, but with Amy H.’s map of Erie’s frogs we were able to drive directly there.
Three years ago, Pittsburgh’s Fern Hollow Bridge collapsed on a cold and icy morning. Since then, I have periodically checked in on the status of the new bridge, the fallout from the collapse including the Mayor’s new Commission on Infrastructure Asset Reporting and Investment, and the condition of other bridges, particularly those closed for safety reasons since the Fern Hollow Bridge collapsed.
At my last check-in one year ago, the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation was still on-going with the latest update on their website a year old. The investigation wrapped up shortly after and the NTSB’s final report was issued in March 2024 (WTAE, March 22, 2024). Unsurprisingly, the report found that the City’s failure to act on the maintenance and repair recommendations from years of inspections led to the structural failure of the bridge. Specifically:
On Friday, January 28, 2022, about 6:37 a.m. eastern standard time, the Fern Hollow Bridge, which carried Forbes Avenue over the north side of Frick Park in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, experienced a structural failure. As a result, the 447-foot-long bridge fell about 100 feet into the park below. The collapse began when the transverse tie plate on the southwest bridge leg failed due to extensive corrosion and section loss. The corrosion and section loss resulted from clogged drains that caused water to run down bridge legs and accumulate along with debris at the bottom of the legs, which prevented the development of a protective rust layer or patina. Although repeated maintenance and repair recommendations were documented in many inspection reports, the City of Pittsburgh failed to act on them, leading to the deterioration of the fracture-critical transverse tie plate and the structural failure of the bridge.
Immediately after the Fern Hollow Bridge collapsed, the City created a Commission on Infrastructure Asset Reporting and Investment. However, it took Mayor Gainey about 18 months to nominate any commissioners and another 5 months for the commission to have its first meeting on December 5, 2023. Despite finally existing, it still hasn’t been added yet to the city’s website listing all Boards and Commissions. It does have an official city website though. The first report from the Commission to City Council was issued on June 5, 2024. In the cover letter, the Commissioners acknowledge that they are charged with reporting to council at least twice a year.
The Charles Anderson Bridge was immediately closed to vehicular traffic on February 1, 2023. On November 4, 2024, the bridge was closed to bicycle and pedestrian traffic as construction was finally underway for rehabilitation of the bridge (the process started in 2019). The Panther Hollow Overpass is also being improved while the traffic is detoured. (Pittsburgh Engage project page)
Pittsburgh’s Swindell Bridge, which closed initially from July to September 2022 due to falling debris. The expectation was that repairs that summer would enable the bridge to fully reopen to traffic. Instead the latest repairs seem to have uncovered more issues. The bridge will eventually undergo a full rehabilitation, which will require another closure during construction. However, that will not be for some time as the bridge is still in the preliminary design phase. (Pittsburgh Engage page)
The “complete overhaul” of the South Negley Avenue Bridge announced in 2022 (CBS, February 25, 2022). The city still does not have a project page for this bridge, though both sidewalks have been closed for safety (Mayor’s Press Release, June 6, 2024; Mayor’s Press Release, June 17, 2024). The obvious deterioration on this bridge and lack of movement on repairs leaves the way open for speculation on whether we will have another bridge disaster in our city sooner rather than later.
Rehabilitation on the Swinburne Bridge remains on pause until after the Charles Anderson Bridge is reopened as the Swinburne Bridge is part of the detour route. (Pittsburgh Engage page)
Preliminary engineering remains ongoing for the rehabilitation of the 28th Street Bridge. (Pittsburgh Engage page)
Preliminary engineering has started for the California Avenue Bridge rehabilitation. (Pittsburgh Engage page)
While the number of “Engage pages” about Pittsburgh bridges has grown in the last year (full list below the map), it still does not align with all the bridges closed fully or partially. In addition to the bridges mentioned above, the most recent addition to the list of bridges with issues, but no Engage page is the Panther Hollow Bridge that closed to vehicles October 2024 due to the results of its most recent inspection (see 2024 Bridge Disasters Actual and Pending for more).
In national bridge news, Congress fully funded the reconstruction of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge before the end of December (Governor Moore’s statement, December 21, 2024), contrary to my prediction on Funding Bridges (December 15, 2024).
Photos: Other Bridges
Historic Pittsburgh Bridge Disasters
According to Bob Regan’s 2006 book “The Bridges of Pittsburgh,” Pittsburgh is no stranger to bridge disasters:
1845 – The original Smithfield Street Bridge burned down
1851 – The 16th Street Bridge burned down
1865 – Two spans of the 16th Street Bridge was washed away in a flood
late 1880s – The 6th Street/St. Clair Street Bridge burned down
1903 – The Wabash Bridge collapsed during construction
1918 – The 16th Street Bridge burned down (again)
1921 – The 30th Street Bridge burned down
1927 – The Mount Washington Roadway Bridge collapsed during construction
Map of bridges discussed in the Bridge Collapse series:
I didn’t have to go far to learn more about Grove City to flesh out the observations I made while walking the bridges. The Borough helpfully installed history markers along the historic business core of South Broad Street. I photographed 33 of the plaques, which I think is all, for anyone interested in virtually visiting these history markers. Of course, these could also be used in the debate over art vs. sign as they also fall into the nuanced mess of the grey area.
My day job for the last decade is working with zoning ordinances. *Yawn,* right? Except I find it surprisingly intriguing. For example, when I visited Grove City in 2022, I was in the middle of writing new model sign regulations for zoning. The puzzle pieces for this effort included incorporating Supreme Court rulings on the constitutionality of sign regulations and making the regulations easier to understand and follow.1 So signs were already on my mind when I encountered Grove City’s parking sculptures and my brain exploded.
Besides the century-old battle between planners and billboard companies, the most difficult thing about sign regulations is the definition of sign. Art cannot be regulated by zoning, but signs can. However, there is a lot of grey between art and sign. Grove City exemplifies that grey area.
Grove City has a series of outdoor sculptures that incorporate directional signage for public parking areas. Based on a strict interpretation of Pittsburgh’s definition of sign (which interpretation frequently got me into arguments with my boss when I was zoning staff for Pittsburgh), the minute any component of a piece of artwork contains a sign, the whole piece of art becomes a sign (see Pittsburgh’s Zoning Ordinance Section 919.01.C.1). The phrase “or any structure designed to carry the above visual information” supports my interpretation that Grove City’s parking sculptures would not be permitted in Pittsburgh because they would not comply with the sign regulations.
Fortunately, Grove City’s zoning ordinance measures a sign only on the “separate individual letters, words, or graphic elements on the background” (see Grove City Zoning Ordinance Section 702, page 72 of 84 in the PDF). As the structure doesn’t count in the calculation of sign area in Grove City, I can now understand how parking sign sculptures could be created without violating their own ordinance.
If you are a frequent visitor to urbantraipsing, you know I don’t typically take selfies. However, I did with the first parking sculpture I encountered in Grove City to provide a sense of scale. These are substantial structures. I am standing in the selfie…and, for those who don’t know me in person, I am 6 feet tall.
I succeeded in creating a model ordinance that balanced brevity with thoroughness and usability with constitutionality. Economy, PA, (Chapter 180, Article XIV) and McCandless, PA, (Article 1305) are two of the municipalities that have adopted this ordinance to their specific needs. ↩︎
This season is the 10th anniversary of the Steubenville1 Nutcracker Village. Each year, the town of Steubenville, OH, sets out a growing number of human-sized nutcrackers each individually decorated. While they are advertised as 6-feet tall, there is some variation in their heights. A few, including “Santa Claus” and “Henry Harley Hank,” tower over the others. A few, including “Jane Banks” and “Michael Banks,” who I’m pretty sure are standing outside a bank, are eye-to-eye for children.
Over the course of the first three years of the Nutcracker Village 150 Nutcrackers were made. Today, there are over 200. (Learn more at the official website.) Shelly2 and I went on a mini-adventure after New Year’s to see these Nutcrackers and test how strong I am for traveling and for urbantraipsing after over a year with Long COVID. While I am tired and sore, it is a manageable level of fatigue, giving me hope that in 2025 I will be able to resume a moderate level of urbantraipsing and travel while continuing to share posts from previous trips.
Between the two of us, Shelly and I photographed 145 of the nutcrackers and saw at least 40 more (we were cold and tired toward the end of our walk and passed by many without stopping to photograph them). Below I share a sampling of our favorite nutcrackers. There is quite a range of nutcrackers from the standard looking “Junior” to the punny “Dr. Cara Lot” and “Fashionutsa Holly,” the far left nutcracker in the window display, to the ornate “By Way of Budapest.” A wind storm that passed through the region a couple weeks ago damaged the Ohio State nutcracker, our waitress’s favorite, so we stopped at Drosselmeyer’s Nutcracker Shoppe where I posed with the ornament version of it.
While Steubenville is only 45 miles from Pittsburgh, making this a very easy day trip adventure, we chose to spend the night. This enabled us to better manage my energy level and to explore more of the town. We enjoyed gyro, egg, and cheese pitas for breakfast from Yorgo’s Gyros & Potatoes and I got a mint chai pick-me-up from Leonardo’s Coffeehouse, the headquarters for the Nutcracker Village. I never would have thought that mint would go with chai, but it was a delicious combination.
This is my second urbantraipsing visit to Steubenville. In 2017, while Dad and I were exploring bridges along the Ohio River on our way to see the full eclipse in Tennessee, we stopped in Steubenville to walk the Market Street Bridge. ↩︎
Shelly is the host and executive producer of the podcast With Bowl and Spoon. We started traveling together the summer of 2023 when we went to Erie. She’s a fun travel companion and great at posing with the Steubenville nutcrackers and Erie frogs and fish. ↩︎
LeapFrog! was a fundraiser in Erie, PA, in 2004. In 2023, Amy H.’s map of Erie’s frogs helped us find “Thrifty Hopper” by Doug Vicary and Walnut Creek Middle School Student Artists in a courtyard off of French Street.
The Mid-Hudson Bridge has a unique additional feature. In 2009, Joseph Bertolozzi used the bridge as the sole instrument in his sound-art installation Bridge Music (see Bertolozzi’s official website for more information). There are two listening stations on the bridge, one at each pier, and those driving across the bridge can also access the music on their car radio. The full Bridge Music is available on CD and Bertolozzi has several YouTube videos of the music. Below is a sample of the music I captured in a video with views of the Hudson River and the two bridges (the Walkway Over the Hudson is the second bridge).
LeapFrog! was a fundraiser in Erie, PA, in 2004. After searching for several frogs hidden inside buildings in 2023, it was refreshing to spot “One Hopper” by Ben Gibson as we rounded the corner at E 10th and French. Amy H.’s map of Erie’s frogs led us to this location.
urbantraipsing 