Color won't change for new 'blue bridge'

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The colorful moniker will still be relevant.

By DENISE DICK

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — The more things change, the more they stay the same — including bridges.

Ohio Department of Transportation District 4 is replacing the bridge that carries the Madison Avenue Expressway, or state Route 193 bridge, with a new span. The roughly $11 million project started in March 2003 nears completion.

Though signs may call it the state Route 193 bridge, it's more commonly known as the "blue bridge" for the bright blue paint that covered the steel.

Though the new bridge, a major path of travel for people headed to Youngstown State University, now bears a nondescript concrete-and-gray hue, that's only temporary.

"It will be blue," said Maureen Bachman, a spokeswoman for ODOT District 4. "They're still in the finishing phases."

In the meantime, the name remains even though the color has been temporarily stripped away.

Kathleen Rodi, director of transportation at Eastgate Council of Regional Governments, said she's heard people talking about the bridge remark, 'You know, that bridge that used to be the blue bridge.'

Significance

Walt Ulbricht, a YSU spokesman, who travels the bridge each day on his way to work, has heard the same thing.

Whatever people call it, Ulbricht views the project as significant for the school and the city.

"This replacement project is important because of the first impression that it presents to visitors to downtown and to the campus," he said.

"People coming from Cleveland or from Akron travel over the bridge and see the new structure and receive a first impression of our community," Ulbricht said.

In 2003, ODOT rated the bridge, built in 1966, as structurally deficient. At that time, the department estimated that about 25,000 vehicles per day travel the bridge.

The new span is a wider steel plate girder bridge with a reinforced concrete deck and substructures.

Saturday, September 30, 2006