Downtown Pittsburgh Bridge Reopens After Lengthy Closure

PITTSBURGH, PA — The Rachel Carson (Ninth Street) Bridge connecting downtown Pittsburtgh and the city's North Shore, has reopened to traffic after a nearly two-year rehabilitation project.

With the reopening comes a new lane configuration. Instead of four lanes of traffic with two lanes in each direction, there are now three lanes of traffic with wider shoulders. When traveling into Downtown from the North Shore, one lane will lead onto the bridge and widen out to two lanes at Fort Duquesne Boulevard. Similarly, when traveling from downtown to the North Shore, one lane will lead onto the bridge and then widen into two lanes on the other side.

The $23.3 million project began in February 2019.

The work included structural steel repairs; construction of a concrete deck; construction of new service lines for utilities; replacement of the expansion dams and drainage systems; sidewalk replacement; replacement of the lighting to resemble its original appearance from the 1920s; and painting the bridge Aztec Gold.

The sidewalk on the west side of the bridge – the one closer to the Andy Warhol Bridge – and the stairway to the Three Rivers Heritage Trail on the Downtown side will remain closed until early spring 2021. Several handrail posts that connect railing to the bridge were found to be unrepairable and need to be fabricated.

The sidewalk on the east side of the bridge has reopened.

The Rachel Carson Bridge was opened in 1926 and is one of the three “Sister Bridges,” the only trio of identical bridges in the world and the first self-anchored suspension bridges in the United States.

This is the second rehabilitation project of the three “Sister Bridges,” following the Andy Warhol (Seventh Street) Bridge project in 2016-17. Rehabilitation of the Roberto Clemente (Sixth Street) Bridge is expected to occur between fall 2021 and spring 2023.