The All-America Bridge in

Akron Akron () is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Summit County. It is located on the western edge of the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau, about south of downtown Cleveland. As of the 2020 Census, the city ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

is a viaduct carrying

Ohio State Route 261 State Route 261 (SR 261) is an east–west state highway located in northeastern Ohio that passes through Medina, Summit, and Portage counties. At a length of , SR 261 runs from a signalized intersection with SR 94 in Wadsworth ...

over the Little Cuyahoga River that splits into a

one-way pair A one-way pair, one-way couple, or couplet refers to that portion of a bi-directional traffic facilitysuch as a road, bus, streetcar, or light rail linewhere its opposing flows exist as two independent and roughly parallel facilities. Descripti ...

. Constructed 1981–1982, the bridge was named in recognition of Akron's past

All-America City Award The All-America City Award is a community recognition program in the United States given by the National Civic League. The award recognizes the work of communities in using inclusive civic engagement to address critical issues and create strong ...

s and is also locally known as the Y-Bridge. The bridge is 134 feet tall in its highest location. The bridge's predecessor, the 1922 North Hill Viaduct, was closed in 1977 after a long history of chunks of concrete falling from the bridge. The poem ''Under the Viaduct, 1932'' from the Pulitzer Prize winning book of poems Thomas and Beulah by

Rita Dove Rita Frances Dove (born August 28, 1952) is an American poet and essayist. From 1993 to 1995, she served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. She is the first African American to have been appointed since the positi ...

, referenced the North Hill Viaduct. Over its existence, the North Hill Viaduct had been the site of at least one suicide a year, though police records were not complete. At least two survived jumps in the 1930s. The replacement bridge has also been a magnet for suicides. From 1997 until December 3, 2009, 29 people committed suicide by jumping from the bridge. In 2009, it was announced that $1 million to $1.5 million would be spent to fence the bridge using federal economic stimulus funds. Fencing the bridge was controversial in Akron and the plan had previously failed to receive local support. Previous local attempts to fence the bridge failed in 1991, 1993, 2000 and 2006. The project was expected to be completed by September 2010 but was stopped for the winter of 2010–2011. The project was finally completed in late December 2011 at a total cost of around $8.7 million. In spite of the presence of the fence, another suicide occurred on June 28, 2012.

References

External links

Fencing the Y-Bridge
'' Akron Beacon Journal'' special section online which includes links to articles covering the fence project as well as general articles about the bridge Bridges completed in 1978 Buildings and structures in Akron, Ohio Transportation in Akron, Ohio Road bridges in Ohio Concrete bridges in the United States {{Ohio-bridge-struct-stub