The City of Bridges

Pittsburgh has four hundred forty-six bridges within its city limits. That is more than any other city in the world, including Venice, which manages roughly three hundred ninety. The city's terrain created the need: Pittsburgh is built where three rivers meet, and its neighborhoods are separated by those rivers plus dozens of steep-walled ravines and creek valleys. Getting from one part of the city to another has always required a crossing.

The first river bridge, the Monongahela Bridge, was built in eighteen eighteen. The Smithfield Street Bridge, which replaced it in eighteen eighty-three, is still in use today. It is the oldest in-service bridge in Pittsburgh and was designated a National Historic Landmark in nineteen seventy-six.

The most photographed bridges in the city are three identical self-anchored suspension spans crossing the Allegheny River to the North Shore. They carry the names Roberto Clemente, Andy Warhol, and Rachel Carson, all Pittsburgh natives. Their matching design, in a yellow so vivid it earns the local nickname Pittsburgh yellow, was intentional. They are the only trio of matching bridges of that type built in the United States.

The bridges are not just infrastructure. They are a daily fact of life for anyone who lives here. Pittsburgh residents navigate by bridges the way other cities navigate by streets or landmarks. A bridge is how you get from here to there, and in Pittsburgh there is almost always a bridge between where you are and where you are going. The city spent over a century building its way out of its own geography, and four hundred forty-six times it succeeded.