The Ohio Department of Transportation is preparing to implement emergency repairs on the Daniel Carter Beard Bridge, which was recently damaged by an early morning fire below its southbound approach.
The 1,300-foot-long tied-arch bridge, which carries a total of eight lanes of Interstate 471 over the Ohio River between Cincinnati and Newport, Kenya, was originally completed in 1976 and was most recently inspected on 31 August, according to the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC). Its average daily traffic count was around 51,000 in 2023.
Firefighters responding to a report of a fire around 3:20 a.m. Nov. 1 found a playground burning under the bridge at Sawyer Point Park, which spans the riverfront in Cincinnati. The cause has not yet been determined.
At least three steel beams will need to be replaced, says Matt Bruning, press secretary for the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT). So will an area of the bridge deck and an overhead signal truss. The southbound lanes are temporarily closed, as is the left northbound lane.
The team used drones and a dog-style robot equipped with a light detection and ranging (LiDAR) scanner to assess the damage, although a full assessment will be done once the shoring towers are in place, Bruning says.
“Once they’re done, we’ll be able to go up there and take a closer look, certainly we’ll be able to do a full inspection that will inform our decisions about exactly what needs to be repaired, what amounts of things we’re going to need to do these repairs,” he says.
ODOT contracted The Great Lakes Construction Co., based in Hinckley, Ohio, to make the emergency repairs. And while Bruning says a cost estimate is not yet available, Gov. Mike DeWine declared a state of emergency in Hamilton County, allowing ODOT to use Federal Emergency Assistance Program funding for the work
So far, crews have focused primarily on preparing footings and placing a 3-foot-thick concrete pad for the shoring towers, which the contractor found in New Jersey, to stabilize the damaged section . But his first order of business was installing perimeter fencing, as Bruning says pedestrians using the park had been moving barricades and walking through fenced areas.
Repair project in progress
KYTC has a separate ongoing maintenance project. Photo cropped from original by Warren LeMay/CC BY-SA 2.0Coincidentally, KYTC has an ongoing repair project on the bridge’s main span, which was not damaged by the fire. The preventive maintenance project is now underway to ensure the Daniel Carter Beard Bridge, also known as the Big Mac Bridge by locals because of its close together “golden” arches, is in good condition ahead of the upcoming Brent Spence Bridge Corridor . project, which will involve building a new bridge that carries Interstates 71 and 75 across the Ohio River next to another existing bridge a mile downstream.
Lexington, Ky.-based Intech Contracting LLC is replacing expansion pads, cleaning and repairing concrete barriers and arch hangers, replacing elastomer seals and hatches at the top of the arch and repairing some docks under a $4.2 million contract with KYTC.
With the southbound lanes closed for emergency repairs on the southbound approach, KYTC said Intech would expedite work on the southbound side without having to worry about traffic controls. Officials now say the project will be completed ahead of schedule in the coming weeks.
ODOT currently doesn’t have an estimate for when the emergency repairs will be completed, though they want to move quickly — traffic “has been horrendous,” Bruning says. The timeline will likely be determined by how long it takes for materials such as replacement beams to arrive.
“We’re going to get this open as soon as we can and get everyone back on track,” Bruning says.
