A safer, more interesting bridge for snowbirds
Bridge carrying I-75 across Ohio River might be worth avoiding
CINCINNATI—U.S. President Barack Obama warned that billions must be spent to upgrade his nation’s crumbling infrastructure and mentioned in particular the bridge carrying Interstate 75 across the Ohio River.
Many thousands of Canadians will cross that bridge this winter driving to and from Florida.
Obama’s successor in the Oval Office has spent nothing on new infrastructure — but fear not. There is a short, safe and very interesting detour around that maligned bridge.
Interstate 75 connects Cincinnati, Ohio, to Covington, Ky., across the wide and deep Ohio River. But less than a kilometre upstream, the beautiful Roebling Suspension Bridge does the same thing. It’s likely safer, a lot quieter and certainly a lot prettier.
Engineer John Roebling designed and built his bridge 100 years before the neighbouring Interstate bridge opened to traffic. It was the world’s longest suspension bridge at 322 metres when it opened in 1867.
It was a practice bridge for Roebling. He used the same design and construction method when he built the famous Brooklyn Bridge 16 years later in New York City, setting a new world record for length at 486.3 metres.
Although the Ohio bridge touches both shores, it’s entirely owned by the state of Kentucky, which closed the bridge for six months in 2006 to give its structure a complete overhaul. It closed the bridge again in 2010 for eight months to paint it.
Kentucky, however, refused to light up the bridge. Instead, hundreds of volunteers from both sides of the river donated money to install nearly 600 lights on the bridge so it would sparkle on the waters of the Ohio at night.
If you do choose to cross the historic Roebling Bridge on your way to or from Florida — check the sports pages first.
Sitting at the Cincinnati end of the bridge are two major stadiums. One is the home of the Cincinnati Bengals of the NFL. The other is home to the Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball. If either team is home that day the bridge becomes a river of people — sports fans flowing across from Covington, where the best restaurants, pubs and cheapest parking can be found.
The Interstate 75 bridge, named the Brent Spence Bridge, opened in 1963 and was designed to carry 80,000 cars a day. The rusting, creaking bridge today carries 170,000 cars a day. State and local officials say it needs at least $2.5 billion in repairs. It’s the shortest route to Cincinnati from that city’s principal airport over on the Kentucky shore, but Uber drivers refuse to use it and take a longer route.
The iconic Brooklyn Bridge, connecting Manhattan to Brooklyn across the East River, looks identical to the Roebling Bridge, except it’s longer.
Roebling started building it 15 years after opening its twin over the Ohio River, but one day a barge crushed Roebling’s foot against a dock. He said he was too busy to go to a hospital for treatment and would nurse it better himself. He died 24 days later from tetanus.
His son Washington, also an engineer, took over the bridge project. The son, however, was soon also incapacitated. He designed pneumatic caissons that used forced air to let men work below the water level to build the stone pillars on the river bottom that supported the cables for the suspension bridge. While directing efforts to douse a fire in the caisson, Roebling suffered decompression sickness (the bends) which confined him to his bed for years.
Roebling advised his wife Emily on his plans for the Brooklyn Bridge and she became the hands-on superintendent on the construction project and opened the bridge in 1883.
After opening the Brooklyn Bridge she went to school and earned a law degree. She died of stomach cancer in 1903 at age 59 and the New York Times ran her obituary 115 years later on International Women’s Day in 2018.
If you decide to use the Roebling Bridge to cross the Ohio River, take a few extra minutes to drive along Riverside Drive on the Kentucky shore. The Ohio River was the boundary between slave states and nonslave states and black Americans strove to cross the Ohio when fleeing slavery in the south.
Riverside Drive features seven impressive bronze statues of famous Americans looking across the river at Cincinnati — one being James Bradley, an enslaved man who managed his owner’s Arkansas plantation so well that he earned enough money to buy his freedom. He headed straight for the Ohio River. He later earned a college degree. On Riverside Drive he is sitting on a bench reading a book, wearing a business suit.
Another statue depicts John James Audubon, a clerk at Cincinnati’s main library, who in his spare time liked to roam the Kentucky shoreline to sketch birds in his notebooks. He eventually became world famous for his bird paintings and studies. His original, priceless book on bird drawings is a treasured archive in Ottawa’s Parliamentary Library.
The bridge has pedestrian sidewalks on both sides and Dave Aker, one of the bridge’s many volunteers, conducts walking tours about its interesting people and construction.
Nets are currently strung on the 220-foot-high limestone tower at the north end on the Ohio shore to catch chunks of limestone falling off the 152year-old tower. Aker said Kentucky has budgeted for a major overhaul of the two end towers in 2021.