About a month ago, I passed through Toledo, Ohio and spent some quality time along the banks of the Maumee River and around downtown. The first span I came across was the Washington Street Bridge that crosses Swan Creek, formerly the Miami and Erie Canal. It was designed in August 1919 and constructed in 1920 by the Toledo Bridge and Crane Company as a Scherzer Rolling Lift bridge sourced from the Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridge Company of Chicago Illinois. It connected downtown to the railroad dock yards on the Middlegrounds, which also included train stations, warehouses and hotels.

 

The canal had peak traffic in the 1850s and was closed to through traffic in 1921. A portion of the canal, from the Maumee River headwaters, was used for local shipping and small boat traffic until 1947 and the Washington Street lift was taken out of service.

 

Below: The following are photographed by Robert Benton for the Historic American Engineering Record.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1995, in order to accommodate Owens-Corning Fiberglass World Headquarters and an increase in traffic, engineers opted to remove the superstructure from the foundation. A new concrete pile foundation and steel girder bridge was installed, and the original superstructure, with a fake counterweight, was fitted on top. Owens Corning's new headquarters on the former Middlegrounds complex in September 1996.

 

In January 2012, the Deputy Mayor Tom Crothers announced that it was seeking to remove the truss, claiming that it was an eyesore and costly to maintain. Crothers added that it "detracted" from the Owens Corning. Crothers claimed that he was acting on behalf of Owens Corning and that the move was about a downtown corporation wanting to remove the eyesore, but Owens Corning disclaimed that. The company responded stating that the city had neglected maintenance of the bridge, and that Owens Corning had requested the city provided a regularly scheduled maintenance program.

 

The bridge was similar to one on Monroe Street that was constructed in 1907 and scrapped in 1995.

 

 

 

The Anthony Wayne Bridge carries Ohio State Routes 2, 51 and 65 over the Maumee River. It is the last suspension bridge on the Ohio state highway network after the Fort Steuben Bridge was demolished on February 22, 2012. The span is named after General Anthony Wayne, a United States Army officer and statesman who had mounted an assault on the Indian confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in modern-day Maumee. It was a decisive victory for United States forces, ending the war and eventually leading to a treaty that gave most of what is now Ohio to the United States.

 

The firm Waddell & Hardesty, with the aid of Moisseiff and architect Cass Gilbert, designed the 3,215-foot suspension and it was constructed in 1931 for $2.6 million. It was notable for featuring the first notable plate girder spans in the United States at 9.8-feet deep.

 

The span was last rehabilitated in 1961 and received major repairs in 1997-98 when its concrete deck was resurfaced, some suspender cables were replaced and its main suspension cables were wrapped with a weatherproofing material.

 

The Ohio Department of Transportation has proposed to rehabilitate the Anthony Wayne Bridge in 2013 as part of a three-year, $50 million overhaul. ODOT has proposed replacing the first approach spans on either side of the suspension bridge with new two-span structures, replacing the deck, corrosion removal on the steel girders, cable repairs and painting. The approach spans are Warren deck trusses and are fracture critical, which ODOT has proposed replacing with girders. A contract was awarded to the E.S. Wagner Company of Oregon for $28.7 million. The bridge will be closed to traffic for 19 months from spring 2014 through 2015.

 

 

 

The Craig Memorial Bridge carries Ohio State Route 65 over the Maumee River in Toledo, Ohio.

 

After the Cherry Street Bridge was destroyed in the flood of 1883, the city towed remnants of the bridge downstream, constructed two new spans and created the Ash-Consaul Bridge. It was demolished in 1957 for the Craig Memorial Bridge, part of Ohio State Route 120. The first section of a relocated Ohio State Route 120 was opened between U.S. Route 20 and Ohio State Route 51 in 1955 and extended north to Summit Street in Toledo two years later, which required the completion of a Maumee River crossing. By 1959, the highway was completed to Michigan as the Toledo-Detroit Expressway and signed as Ohio State Route 120 south of and US 24A north of Summit Street.

 

In 1958, Ohio requested that Interstate 77 be designated for the Toledo-Detroit Expressway. Interstate 77 would have veered westward from Cleveland and overlapped with Interstate 90 to Toledo, using the Toledo-Detroit Expressway to Detroit. It would have then veered westward to Port Huron, Michigan. By August, Ohio requested that Interstate 77 be truncated to Cleveland and that Interstate 280 be applied to the new expressway, and that Michigan's portion of former Interstate 77 be designated Interstate 75E. It was approved in November by AASHO.

 

Interstate 280 was not brought up to freeway standards south of East Toledo until 1990 and contained seven at-grade intersections. But the drawbridge and its network of ramps on both ends was an obstacle. By 1996, the drawbridge opened on average 900 times a year for ship traffic, with an average delay of seven minutes but had decreased to 266 openings by 2007. It's ramp configurations were treacherous; it featured a three-leg northbound exit to Summit and Huron streets, but the Huron ramp was closed shortly after due to a rash of accidents. During the mid-1990s, the northbound Summit to southbound Craig ramp was closed after a safety wall built during bridge renovations caused such poor sight distances that motorists using the ramp could not see traffic that they had to merge into. In addition, all of the ramps were too short for traffic to merge onto the interstate.

 

In 2007. the Craig Memorial Bridge closed to all traffic for reconstruction into a local roadway as part of the Glass City Skyway project. The project involved the creation of a bike path separate from automobile traffic, the installation of fiberglass decking instead of a steel grid for the bike path, the removal of the Interstate 280 ramps and the filling in of the Interstate 280 trench through North Toledo with 815,000 cubic yards of earth 20-feet deep. It was reopened to traffic on December 15, 2009, although work remained to convert the remainder of what used to be Interstate 280 and its network of ramps into public parks. Several projects wrapped up in the fall of 2010, including additional landscaping and the construction of connecting bike paths.

 

The total project cost was $21.3 million.

 

 

 

The Glass City Skyway carries Interstate 280 over the Maumee River and was the Ohio Department of Transportation's (ODOT) biggest single construction project in history and replaced the Craig Memorial Bridge.

 

Planning for a new Maumee River crossing to replace the drawbridge began in 1988, when a Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments report noted that the Craig Memorial Bridge needed to be replaced or bypassed. Federal funds for preliminary planning came through in 1991, but it was not until 1998 that ODOT's Transportation Review Advisory Council allocated $200 million in state and federal funds towards the project.

 

ODOT recommended that a bridge be built alongside existing Interstate 280 for cost. During a series of public meetings, ODOT project planners and HNTB/Parsons Brinckerhoff showcased potential designs for the new bridge, including a box-girder, truss, suspension and cable-stayed designs. A tunnel option had been eliminated due to its cost. The box-girder and truss alternatives were dismissed and public opinion favored the cable-stayed for being the most distinctive. Later meetings revealed that most attendees preferred a single, center pylon with stays radiating down to the deck, glass panels inlaid in the center tower with internal lighting and stainless steel sheathing on the cables. The public also voiced support for the planting of native shrubs and grasses onto the new Interstate 280 right-of-way, bike paths and new park space.

 

Naming the bridge was fairly easy, as most opted for either Veterans' Memorial Bridge and Glass City Skyway during a survey in 2001.(3)(4) The decision, which rested with the state, involved a merger of the two into Veterans Glass City Skyway.

 

Groundbreaking ceremonies for the Skyway was held on May 11, 2001 and bids were opened for the project on January 15, 2002. The $220 million contract with Fru-Con Construction of Ballwin, Miccouri was awarded in March.

 

Within three months of the construction letting, Fru-Con began drilling foundation shafts for the new bridge piers and started work on a cofferdam in the Maumee River for the main pylon. The company also ordered two gantry-truss cranes from an Italian manufacturer. By July 2003, the Skyway was 45% complete and assembly of the East Toledo approach viaduct had begun. The project was 405 days ahead of schedule and was so far ahead that Fru-Con and ODOT announced an agreement to complete work by Labor Day, 2005.

 

The bridge was fabricated at a yard on Front Street over a two year timeframe. Reinforced concrete was used throughout the Skyway, and all materials, 3,008 deck segments and 42, 85-ton delta frames, were pre-built at the yard. The first delta frame, cast on August 29, 2002, comprised of a epoxy-covered steel reinforcing frame. The frame took 90 minutes to fill and a month to cure. The main pylon was poured in stages from 32-feet below the riverbed to 403.25-feet above the river.

 

On February 16, 2004, one of two yellow gantry truss cranes that were used to assemble the spans peeled away from its moorings and crashed 60 feet to the ground that killed four ironworkers and injured four others. It was found that shortcuts were undertaken in anchoring the crane's rear legs during the procedure of extending it for repositioning. A concrete quality problem was discovered shortly after that required Fru-Con to remove and replace 184 cubic yards of the pylon that had no effect on the project's schedule. ODOT also discovered that the plastic coating on many stay-cable strands were cracked, which comprised their longevity but not their strength, leading to most coatings being replaced.

 

To resume construction, Fru-Con modified the lone intact truss without the self-contained repositioning system. The company then sourced two other trusses; one was similar to that which had collapsed while the other was an underslung truss that supported spans from below during assembly.

 

On October 23, a positioning leg fell from the other truss as it was being moved into place. The incident, which injured no one, was blamed on a mis-wired control switch. Work on the main span was stopped for eight months while the contractor revised its construction plan and to procure new equipment.

 

The last of the 3,045 concrete segments for the new bridge was poured on April 1, 2005 shortly after 9:15 AM. On October 17, the main tower was "topped off" that included a small ceremony. The topping off included the lifting of a 13.5-foot-tall inverted concrete "V" that was hoisted 400 feet by crane to the top of the pylon. Another milestone was achieved on July 13, 2006 when the first sheathing for the stay cables was erected. The stainless steel sheathing, which took 15 minutes to install, was the first step in constructing 20 sets of stable cables. The threading of 119 strands of cables for the sheathing were completed the following day.

 

Interstate 280 was closed between the Greenbelt Parkway and Summit Street from October 18, 2005 until November 2006 while the North Toledo approach viaduct was constructed over the existing highway. The interstate was not scheduled to be closed but incidents with the cranes led the plan to be scuttled. But the delays were so great that ODOT agreed to waive a $20,000-per-day late-completion penalty until March 2, 2007. The state had been docking Fru-Con $10,000 per day since May 28, 2006 for the continued closing of Interstate 280, a penalty that exceeded $1.7 million by the time the freeway reopened.

 

The final two precast bridge segments were installed on December 20, 2006 and the closure pour was conducted on February 16, 2007. The pour, which joined the main span over the Maumee with the North Toledo viaduct approach, was conducted on the crane collapse's third anniversary.

 

Another construction incident occurred on April 19 when a work platform attached to the bridge's side detached and fell 82 feet to the ground, killing a carpenter who was working on the platform. Fru-Con was fined $405,000 by OSHA for violations associated with the collapses, and the contractor paid out $11.25 million in settlements with the affected families.

 

A dedication ceremony was held on June 23, 2007 at 10:30 AM, which was followed by a four-mile road race and walk at noon and a motorized parade led by veterans' groups that crossed the northbound lanes at 12:30 PM. Most of bridge was opened to automobile traffic on Sunday. Initially, two of its three lanes in each direction were opened and the remainder were opened later in the year after the defective stay-cable strands were replaced. Construction of a memorial for the five workers who died during erection of the Skyway began in October 2010 after a design was finalized in early 2006. The centerpiece involved the fabrication of a kinetic sculpture atop four pillars with two 24-foot arms that spin in the wind in a small plaza in Tribue Park.

 

The Skyway project was completed for $237 million and involved a number of firsts and records. The bridge included the world's thickest stay cables at 70% over what was previously used in the United States, the first use of stainless steel cable sheathing and the first pylon with 176 internally lit, inlaid glass panels that feature 13,824 light-emitting diodes in 384 fixtures. The lights are expected to last 22 years before needing replacement, and the stay cables have a lifespan of 100 years. The cradle system to house the cables, which allowed each strand to be replaced individually and act independently, was honored with the Pankow Award from the Civil Engineering Forum for Innovation and the NOVA Award from the Construction Innovation Forum. Over 2.2 million man-hours was required for the project.

 

 

 

 

 

The Glass City Skyway is this author's most favorite highway bridge in the state of Ohio.

You love you some cable-stayed bridges!