The Moody Pedestrian Bridge is a pedestrian bridge in

Austin, Texas Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and W ...

on the campus of the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...

. It connects two buildings within the

Moody College of Communication The Moody College of Communication is the communication college at The University of Texas at Austin. The Moody College of Communication operates out of the Jesse H. Jones Communication Complex and the Dealey Center for New Media, which opened i ...

across a street.

Design

The Moody Pedestrian Bridge is an inverted Fink truss bridge that connects the second floor of the Belo Center for New Media to the fourth floor of Jones Communication Center buildings A and B over West Dean Keeton Street near the edge of the University of Texas campus. The bridge is supported by a central steel

pier A pier is a raised structure that rises above a body of water and usually juts out from its shore, typically supported by piling, piles or column, pillars, and provides above-water access to offshore areas. Frequent pier uses include fishing, b ...

standing on the

median The median of a set of numbers is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a Sample (statistics), data sample, a statistical population, population, or a probability distribution. For a data set, it may be thought of as the “ ...

of the street below, together with a series of steel towers anchored to the deck by tension rods. The overall length of the bridge is approximately , with the highest central towers reaching high. The bridge has aesthetic lighting integrated into its stainless steel railings. Bridge designer Miguel Rosales, of

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

-based bridge architects and engineers Rosales + Partners, provided the conceptual and preliminary design, bridge architecture, and aesthetic lighting design. Freese and Nichols was the engineering firm of record. The construction contractor for the bridge was Flintco. Funding for the bridge's design and construction was provided by the Moody Foundation, a charitable foundation based in

Galveston, Texas Galveston ( ) is a Gulf Coast of the United States, coastal resort town, resort city and port off the Southeast Texas coast on Galveston Island and Pelican Island (Texas), Pelican Island in the U.S. state of Texas. The community of , with a pop ...

History

In November 2012 the University of Texas's school of communication expanded from its buildings in the Jones Communication Center into the newly completed Belo Center for New Media across Dean Keeton Street to the north. To physically (and symbolically) reconnect the college's departments, the college began exploring plans to connect the buildings with an elevated bridge. In 2013 the Moody Foundation donated $50 million to the college, for which the school was renamed the

; some of those funds were used to pay for the design and construction of the pedestrian bridge. Construction on the bridge was approved by the Austin City Council in June 2015 and began shortly thereafter. Dean Keeton Street was partially closed to traffic due to construction in December 2015 and January 2016. After some delays, construction was completed and the bridge opened to student and faculty use on 22 March 2016.

References

External links

Moody Bridge construction time-lapse
{{University of Texas at Austin, campus Bridges in Austin, Texas Bridges completed in 2016 University of Texas at Austin campus Steel bridges in the United States Pedestrian bridges in Texas Truss bridges in the United States