Pittsburgh Bridges: Fort Duquesne Bridge

In the 1700s, France controlled the Ohio River Valley and built Fort Duquesne at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers in 1754.  George Washington spent his early years as a soldier exploring the area and fighting a few battles against the French, which he lost.

The Fort Duquesne Bridge was built between 1958 and 1963 by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) across the Allegheny River a little east of where it flows into the Ohio River. The main span is a 426 ft (130 m) long, double-deck steel through arch. Unfortunately, PennDOT was having trouble acquiring right-of-way to the land north of the bridge and so for several years the bridge ended abruptly. In fact, a student at the University of Pennsylvania drove across 'The Bridge to Nowhere' in 1964 but fortunately landed safely on the ground. The northwest ramps were built in 1969 and the northeast ramps were completed in 1986. The Fort Duquesne Bridge funnels traffic in and out of Pittsburgh and on and off several interstate expressways to the north.

The north side of the bridge is between Heinz Field (home of the Steelers) and PNC Park (home of the Pirates) just west of the Andy Warhol Museum. In the photo you can see PNC Park and the Three Sisters Suspension Bridges across the Allegheny just east of the Fort Duquesne Bridge. 

Pittsburgh Bridges: Fort Duquesne Bridge by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.