Ohio SR 735 and the Silver Bridge

[Andrew T.]

What is the story behind Ohio State Route 735?  This road perplexes me.  It's an overbuilt, four-lane divided thoroughfare that's only a mile long, leading from US 35 to an anticlimactic T-junction at the Ohio River.

The road lines up with the west abutment of the Silver Bridge, which collapsed in 1967.  So this was the pre-1967 alignment of US 35, right?  Not so.  In all the maps and imagery I've seen from the era of the bridge (including aerial photos from 1967 itself), this highway leading up to it hadn't yet been built.

The wiki claims that this road was built IN 1967.  Did they really build a brand-new approach to the Silver Bridge just days before it ceased to exist?  Talk about bad timing, if true!  And why make this borderline-useless connector its own state highway, instead of leaving it as "To 35" or "US 35 Spur"...or even downloading it to a county or township road?  It makes me wonder...

[JREwing78]

I'm not sure what kind of story you're looking for. Did two state transportation departments really plan a major highway to cross a bridge they knew was going to collapse as soon as they made the highway connection?

Also, why would they suspect a 40 year old bridge would be in immediate danger of collapse? It's not like they had regular bridge inspections looking for problems, particularly not on relatively new bridges. This was one of the key disasters that lead to the enactment of a nationalized, standardized bridge inspection program


The U.S. 35 Silver Bridge between Point Pleasant, WV, and Gallipolis, OH, collapses at approximately 5 p.m. [on December 15, 1967], killing 46 people and injuring 9 when 31 of the 37 vehicles on the bridge fall into the Ohio River or onto the Ohio shore.
 
The collapse, the first major collapse since the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed on November 7, 1940, prompts national concern about bridge conditions and leads to the establishment of the National Bridge Inspection Standards under the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968 and the Special Bridge Replacement Program under the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970.

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/byday/fhbd1215.htm

More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Bridge

[Bitmapped]

SR 735 was built as an upgraded alignment of US 35. It was completed around the same time the Silver Bridge collapsed.

When the Silver Memorial Bridge was built, West Virginia decided to build the new bridge downstream so it would bypass Point Pleasant. On the West Virginia side, this involved moving US 35 from one side of the Kanawha River (present WV 62) to the other side (then WV 17, now WV 817).

With the new bridge being built at a different location, ODOT was left with a relatively new 4-lane alignment. They opted to use it for movements to/from the west on US 35. Since it is maintained by ODOT, it needed a state route number. ODOT doesn't really do hidden route numbers, so SR 735 was signed.

Why wasn't it downloaded to Gallia County? The road exists to connect two state-maintained roadways. It functions as a long ramp. It is appropriate for ODOT to maintain it.

[Andrew T.]

Thanks--

SR 735 was built as an upgraded alignment of US 35. It was completed around the same time the Silver Bridge collapsed.

I'm really curious about the timing of construction.  Had the new alignment even been finished and opened for traffic yet at the time of the collapse?  And what was going through the minds of the Ohio Department of Highways at the time:  Did they assume that the Silver Bridge would be refitted or reconstructed on the existing site, allowing their new road to continue to carry US 35?  Did they consider suspending construction, or abandoning the work they had just done?

Unfortunately, none of the documentation or news stories I've seen about the bridge say anything about this.

With the new bridge being built at a different location, ODOT was left with a relatively new 4-lane alignment. They opted to use it for movements to/from the west on US 35. Since it is maintained by ODOT, it needed a state route number. ODOT doesn't really do hidden route numbers, so SR 735 was signed.

Why wasn't it downloaded to Gallia County? The road exists to connect two state-maintained roadways. It functions as a long ramp. It is appropriate for ODOT to maintain it.

That would explain it.

[I-55]

Thanks--

SR 735 was built as an upgraded alignment of US 35. It was completed around the same time the Silver Bridge collapsed.

I'm really curious about the timing of construction.  Had the new alignment even been finished and opened for traffic yet at the time of the collapse?  And what was going through the minds of the Ohio Department of Highways at the time:  Did they assume that the Silver Bridge would be refitted or reconstructed on the existing site, allowing their new road to continue to carry US 35?  Did they consider suspending construction, or abandoning the work they had just done?

Unfortunately, none of the documentation or news stories I've seen about the bridge say anything about this.

With the new bridge being built at a different location, ODOT was left with a relatively new 4-lane alignment. They opted to use it for movements to/from the west on US 35. Since it is maintained by ODOT, it needed a state route number. ODOT doesn't really do hidden route numbers, so SR 735 was signed.

Why wasn't it downloaded to Gallia County? The road exists to connect two state-maintained roadways. It functions as a long ramp. It is appropriate for ODOT to maintain it.

That would explain it.

I'm sure someone will dig deeper than I and find the actual reason but my assumption is that ODOT would've built a twin span for that bridge (similar to the 12th and 13th street bridges in Ironton) if the need arose. Given that US 35 was going to downtown Pt Pleasant at the time I'm not sure how a 4 lane alignment would've worked without separate one way streets, which would've required a new bridge further apart from a single span.

[seicer]

From WVDOT's historic plan maps, nothing indicates a four-lane widening through downtown Pt. Pleasant for US 35. I'm unsure how that would be achieved unless they knocked down the buildings across from the courthouse. And from ODOT's historic plan maps, nothing indicates a proposed second span (example).

I also forgot there was an overpass for Burnett Avenue that was later converted into an intersection.

[wriddle082]

I would imagine that ODOT simply built (current OH 735/former US 35) to downgrade from expressway to regular route at the foot of the original Silver Bridge at OH 7.  They may have assumed that a decent amount of traffic would siphon off onto OH 7 so that the traffic volumes that remained on US 35 across the bridge to Point Pleasant were acceptable for a two lane crossing.

Did US 35 always function as an important NW-SE corridor across OH and WV back in the 60's?  Even through downtown Point Pleasant?  Because now I'm wondering if maybe the Silver Memorial Bridge would have been ultimately built anyway to handle current traffic patterns, even if the Silver Bridge had never collapsed.  Only difference would be that the new bridge would have been built in the 80's or 90's.

[hwyfan]

A check of 1967 aerial photography of the Point Pleasant, West Virginia vicinity shows an intact Silver Bridge and the Ohio approach span terminating at a T intersection with Ohio SR-7. 

There isn't any sign of either Ohio SR-735 nor a limited access U.S. 35 highway open (or under construction) at that time.

https://www.historicaerials.com/

https://www.oldmapsonline.org/en/maps/521cc5de-7352-50d6-bd1b-ab9929e3d387/compare?gid=2959dca8-9d79-5d71-914b-651274cf549a#position=9.5968/38.8497/-82.1845/-0.86&year=1966

[JREwing78]

Thanks--

SR 735 was built as an upgraded alignment of US 35. It was completed around the same time the Silver Bridge collapsed.

I'm really curious about the timing of construction.  Had the new alignment even been finished and opened for traffic yet at the time of the collapse?  And what was going through the minds of the Ohio Department of Highways at the time:  Did they assume that the Silver Bridge would be refitted or reconstructed on the existing site, allowing their new road to continue to carry US 35?  Did they consider suspending construction, or abandoning the work they had just done?

Unfortunately, none of the documentation or news stories I've seen about the bridge say anything about this.

Given the time of year of the collapse (well outside typical construction season), it's a safe bet that the 4-laned US-35 was open to traffic at the time of the collapse right to the intersection with the Silver Bridge.

... I'm wondering if maybe the Silver Memorial Bridge would have been ultimately built anyway to handle current traffic patterns, even if the Silver Bridge had never collapsed.  Only difference would be that the new bridge would have been built in the 80's or 90's.

That would seem to make sense. There was no reason to not run the 4-lane US-35 right up to its intersection with SR-7, and without immediate need to build a new bridge (let alone plans for one), ODOT was not stressing over West Virginia's next move. It would've been more dangerous to downgrade to a two-lane before the intersection with OH-7, trying to save a few bucks when it was unsure where a future bridge would go or when it would arrive.

US-50 in Belprie, OH/Parkersburg, WV is one example of what the long-term thinking was for the US-35 corridor when it was built. ODOT had 4-laned US-50 on its side long before the Blennerhasset Bridge opened to traffic in 2008.

There were two choices to get across the Ohio River:
- The 4-lane Parkersburg-Belprie Bridge directly connecting the two downtowns on (now Old) US-50, built in 1980, replacing a 1916-vintage suspension bridge just downstream

- The toll Memorial Bridge, dating from 1954 and rehabilitated in 2023.

It took until the end of 2008 for a US-50 freeway bypass of Parkersburg and the Blennerhasset Bridge to open to traffic. Granted, that was a far more extensive undertaking than the US-35 bridge across the Ohio River at Point Pleasant.

US-33 at Ravenswood may well be a better example. Ohio is just now 4-laning its side, years after West Virginia built theirs. What's not happening? A replacement or twin of the Ravenswood Bridge, at least not yet. Given the lack of chatter about it, it's unlikely either state will fix that issue before about 2050 or so. While it's an annoying slowdown, the traffic isn't quite enough to justify the upgrade, and both states have better places to spend their money.
 
It's clear nobody in 1967 was expecting a new Silver Bridge would be necessary for some time. Had the same kinds of inspection programs existed then that exist now, however, they may have caught the problem before the Silver Bridge collapsed. 

[hbelkins]

^^^

The only major slowdown on US 33 in Ravenswood is the signal where it departs WV 2 and then the loop to access the bridge from WV 68. A better solution would be to build a straight connector from the short four-lane segment between WV 68 and I-77. It wouldn't even need to be four lanes, given traffic volumes.

[The Ghostbuster]

WV 62 was the original alignment of US 35 between Point Pleasant and Charleston, where it terminated at either US 21 or US 60: https://www.usends.com/35.html. The construction of the new bridge moved the southern terminus of 35 to US 60 in St. Albans (now WV 817), and the new four-lane alignment moved the southern terminus to Interstate 64 in Teays Valley (I believe the portion south of Interstate 64 has the unsigned US 35 Spur designation). I find it interesting that each realignment of US 35 made it shorter and shorter within the State of West Virginia. OH 588 was also part of US 35 before the construction of the four-lane alignment as well.

[seicer]

^^^

The only major slowdown on US 33 in Ravenswood is the signal where it departs WV 2 and then the loop to access the bridge from WV 68. A better solution would be to build a straight connector from the short four-lane segment between WV 68 and I-77. It wouldn't even need to be four lanes, given traffic volumes.

US-33 at Ravenswood may well be a better example. Ohio is just now 4-laning its side, years after West Virginia built theirs. What's not happening? A replacement or twin of the Ravenswood Bridge, at least not yet. Given the lack of chatter about it, it's unlikely either state will fix that issue before about 2050 or so. While it's an annoying slowdown, the traffic isn't quite enough to justify the upgrade, and both states have better places to spend their money.

Previously mentioned:

"As of early January, ODOT and WVDOH were working to select a consultant to study the Ravenswood bridge and direct connection to I-77. It will be interesting to see any proposed alternatives (if any) for a high-speed connection between I-77 and 33 westbound."

[hwyfan]

None of the US 35 limited access freeway or Ohio SR 735 stub was constructed in the Gallipolis area at the time of the Silver Bridge collapse.  Traffic that would have been following US 35 westbound from the Silver Bridge in 1967 would have made a left turn at the "T" intersection with Ohio SR-7, proceeded south on SR-7/US 35 for 3.7 miles and made a right at Pine Street in Gallipolis (today Ohio SR-160) to continue west on US 35.  It joined up with Ohio SR-588 at the village of Rodney, Ohio. 

1966 map of the area: 
https://www.oldmapsonline.org/en/Gallia_County,_Ohio?gid=2959dca8-9d79-5d71-914b-651274cf549a#position=10.8651/38.8223/-82.2681&year=1966