WHISKEY ISL - CUYAHOGA PEDESTRIAN BRIDGE DESIGN IDEAS

Submitted by Jeff Buster on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 13:02.

concept drawing for pedestrian bridge at the mouth of the cuyahoga river cleveland ohio

Peter Griesinger is a Whiskey Island Park advocate, and both Peter and Ed Hauser recognized the importance of pedestrian/bike/public access to the park.   Peter developed a concept drawing (photo above published with Mr.Griesinger’s permission) to get the design discussion going.
 
The Towpath Trail will someday (when NEO gets its act together) culminate at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River and a pedestrian/bike bridge would allow a circular route from the east bank of the Cuyahoga, over to Whiskey Island, the Coast Guard Station, the Hullets, and then back up the west side of the Cuyahoga to the Canal Basin Park.
 
Of course, the more practical the design, the less costly the bridge will be – and the less costly it is the more likely it is that a pedestrian bridge will be built.   
 
Another pedestrian bridge idea I heard being kicked around is to attach an “outrigger” bridge to the existing CSX elevating bridge.   The outrigger bridge would have a passenger accommodating shuttle “car” on it.   The shuttle car would be controlled by the CSX bridge personnel who are in the control house near the Rail Road bridge.   The RR would raise liability concerns, for sure, but those concerns can be mitigated.  kayandjay.net have two photos of the RR bridge at the top of this page on their website.
 
KayandJay.net have great photos of the Ohio Erie Towpath Trail, and if you scroll down you will see a photo of a cable stayed pedestrian/bike bridge over Granger Road.  The Granger Road Towpath trail bridge clears about 15 feet over the street and is about 600 feet long in order to provide a slope amenable to bikes.   
 
A bridge over the Cuyahoga needs to clear about 90 feet (according to Peter).   Do the math for the overall length of a straight cable stayed bridge….
 
Is there an advocate who will put up $10,000.00 for an international engineering design contest prize - to encourage development of a Whiskey Island pedestrian/bike bridge?
 
I suggest that with the Towpath completed to Lake Erie, and a pedestrian/bike bridge over the Cuyahoga at its mouth, more tourists – entire families - would come into Cleveland than any MEDCON will ever bring.    And the cost would be less than 5% of the billion tax dollars Mr. Haggan desires to sink into Chris Kennedy's operation.

 

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Bridge conveyor design from Ashabula, Ohio like Griesinger's

Submitted by Jeff Buster on Sat, 05/09/2009 - 16:03.

ashtabula ohio conveyor bridge post card

 
This image is a photograph of one of many post cards covering ore and iron shipping on the Great Lakes from the recent Cleveland stamp show. I spoke with a staff person who was dismantling the exhibit and was told that the exhibiter had been a merchant marine on the Great Lakes all his life, had retired to Florida, and had shipped his exhibit to the stamp show.  Thank you to the collector!
The exhibit had a hundred or so photograph  post cards showing all facets of coal, iron ore, limestone, and other steel related shipping on the Great Lakes.  There were shots of lakers wrecked on break walls in ice storms, ships broken in half, Hullets from all angles, loading and unloading docks, etc.  There were many unusual structures/loading/unloading equipment which I had never seen before.   Someone should get in touch with the exhibit owner and photograph all his material and produce a book.  It would be an important historical reference, and with the owner’s materials would be a very thorough compendium.  The day I was at the show, I had loaned my better digital camera to a friend, and was not able to take decent photos through the plastic which protected the exhibit.