Newport Southbank Bridge

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Newport Southbank Bridge
The Purple People Bridge as viewed from the top of the Carew Tower
Carries	Pedestrians
Crosses	Ohio River
Locale	Newport, Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio
Total length	813.82 meters (2,670 feet)
Opening date	April 1, 1872
Coordinates	39.098019° N 84.497747° W
Maps and aerial photos Street map from Google Maps or Yahoo! Maps Topographic map from TopoZone Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA Satellite image from Google Maps or Microsoft Virtual Earth

The Newport Southbank Bridge (popularly known as the Purple People Bridge after the Sheb Wooley song Purple People Eater) stretches 2,670 feet over the Ohio River, connecting Newport, Kentucky to downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. It is the longest pedestrian-only bridge in the United States connecting two states.

[edit] History

The bridge first opened on April 1, 1872 under the name Newport and Cincinnati Bridge, and was Cincinnati's first railroad bridge spanning the Ohio River. Over the course of the next 35 years, the bridge would be retrofitted to accommodate streetcar, pedestrian and automobile traffic.

In 1904, the bridge was renamed the L&N (Louisville and Nashville) Railroad Bridge, and this name remained until the bridge was rehabilitated and re-opened as a pedestrian-only bridge in May, 2003.

The bridge was closed to railroad traffic in 1987 and later closed to automobile traffic in October, 2001 after years of neglect and deterioration.

On April 17, 2001, the L&N Railroad Bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In late 2001, the city of Newport, Kentucky and Southbank Partners, an economic development group, used $4 million in state funds to restore the bridge. When it was time to decide on what color to paint it, a variety of options were explored. Computer-generated images of the bridge were shown to participants in more than a dozen focus groups, all of whom picked the color purple as a top choice. It was soon coined the "Purple People Bridge" by area residents.

The bridge provides convenient access to the "Newport on the Levee" development in Newport, Kentucky, as well as downtown Cincinnati.

In 2006, it became possible for the public to cross the bridge via its superstructure wearing appropriate safety gear. There are similar bridge climb experiences in Australia and New Zealand.