How many governments does it take to build a walkway along the Roebling Suspension Bridge?
If you guessed four, you were right.
Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Covington and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet have been working since January on the project.
The bridge’s new, eastern walkway allows pedestrians to walk, ride or push a wheelchair or stroller from the Covington side of the Ohio River to Cincinnati without crossing a street or going up a stairway.
“For a relatively small project, there were a lot of people involved,” said John Deatrick, project executive for the Banks, of the $430,000 project, which cost less than the originally estimated $1 million. “Where we’re standing now is a Kentucky bridge on an easement over park property, which was just given to parks by Hamilton County two weeks ago, so that gives you some idea of the complexity of just the property issue.”
The bridge is also a National Historic Landmark – “the highest level of angel,” Deatrick said, “so anything you do near it or on it, you have to get a lot of people’s permission, and justifiably so.”
The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet replaced the east side of the bridge in the early 1960s. Prior to the recent work, pedestrians had to take a stairway down to the bottom of the bridge where Mehring Way used to be.