The Valley View Bridge is a trio of steel multi-stringer highway
girder bridges that carry
Interstate 480 over the
Cuyahoga River valley in
Valley View and
Independence
Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the statu ...
,
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
. They are high and long.
[
]
History
The bridges opened in 1977 providing access to the nearby Willow Freeway ( I-77).
In 1999, the Ohio Department of Transportation
The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT; ) is the administrative department of the Ohio state government responsible for developing and maintaining all state and U.S. roadways outside of municipalities and all Interstates except the Ohio T ...
painted the bridge a red-primer color, replacing the original gray.
In 2010, the bridge received the honorary name "Union Workers Memorial Bridge".
In 2011, ODOT will begin a project to retrofit the bridge's parapets. The work includes installing new fences and moving the overhead lighting to the outside of the structures. The estimated cost of construction is $4.4 million.[ will be retained after the bridge replacement phase ends in 2022, creating a bypass of the interchanges on each end of the bridge, functioning as express lanes; the project as a whole is expected to run until 2024.][
A pair of peregrine falcons nests under the bridge.
]
Accidents
The city of Valley View has jurisdiction over the bridge, and they have been assisted by the police and fire departments from Garfield Heights and Independence.
*On February 17, 1986, a driver was rescued when his semi-truck partially left the bridge.
*In February 1996, a car fell from the bridge, killing the driver.
*In March 1997, police and the fire department responded to a dangling semi-truck. The driver was safely rescued.[
*On February 22, 2011, a semi-truck driver was killed when his cab fell off the bridge.][
*On June 25, 2013, during a severe storm, a couple of highway signs fell down hitting two cars and injuring one person.
*On December 14, 2017, while attempting to elude police, a man drove down the steep embankment that separates the two spans of the bridge.]
See also
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*
*
* List of crossings of the Cuyahoga River
This is a list of bridges and other crossings of the Cuyahoga River from its mouth at Lake Erie upstream to its source at Burton, Ohio. The list includes current road and rail crossings, as well as various other crossings of the river.
All locat ...
* List of bridges in the United States by height
This is a list of the highest bridges in the United States by height over land or water. ''Height'' in this list refers to the distance from the bridge deck to the lowest point on the land, or the water surface, directly below. A bridge's deck he ...
References
External links
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{{Crossings navbox
, structure = Crossings
, place = Cuyahoga River
, bridge = Valley View Bridge
, bridge signs =
, upstream = Rockside Road
, upstream signs =
, downstream = Granger Road
, downstream signs =
Bridges on the Interstate Highway System
Bridges over the Cuyahoga River
Road bridges in Ohio
Interstate 80
Steel bridges in the United States
Girder bridges in the United States
Transportation buildings and structures in Cuyahoga County, Ohio