[“VHS” by Rowan Mathews]
The Bridge That Was: University Removes 1970s Footbridge
The Ridley Footbridge over Emmet Street is gone.
The bridge, built in the early 1970s as part of the construction of what is now the University of Virginia’s School of Education and Human Development, was dismantled over the weekend. Facilities Management closed Emmet Street Thursday night to allow contractor S.B. Cox of Richmond to begin the demolition of the bridge, starting with breaking up the concrete pad on the bridge’s surface with jackhammers mounted on the articulated arms of excavators.
Once that was accomplished, welders with torches cut through I-beams on the exposed steel support structure, then lowered the segments to street level. Dump trucks hauled away the debris starting early Friday morning.
A platform of planks protected the surface of Emmet Street underneath the bridge. The street reopened at 7 a.m. on Sunday, ahead of schedule.
The University recently opened a new bridge over Emmet Street just a few yards to the north, connecting Newcomb Road South with the new Contemplative Commons building. The new bridge complies with the Americans With Disabilities Act, which the old bridge – with sets of stairs at either end – did not.
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Article Information
December 3, 2024