The I-280 Veterans' Glass City Skyway

The new Interstate 280 bridge over the Maumee River in Toledo, Ohio, USA opened to traffic on 24th June 2007. This landmark cable-stayed bridge, named the Veterans' Glass City Skyway, is the largest bridge project ever undertaken by the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) and incorporates unique structural and aesthetic features. The centerpiece of the new crossing is a 464,8 m long cable-stayed main span unit featuring a 132,8 m tall single pylon. All four sides of the uppermost 60,7 m of the pylon are faced in glass to honor Toledo's heritage in the glass-making industry. At night 384 light emitting diode (LED) based fixtures behind the glass display more than 16 million programmable color combinations. The aesthetic features in the main pylon are made possible by the development of the new cradle system for the stay cables. The stay cradles carry the stay strands through a series of parallel stainless steel tubes inside a larger stainless steel outer sheathing. The cradle eliminates the need for stay anchorages embedded into the pylon and their associated high tensile forces. Instead, the stay forces are transferred to the pylon concrete using compressive stresses, taking advantage of the natural strength of the concrete and allowing for a more structurally efficient pylon cross-section. The main span unit was erected over the Maumee River using precast concrete superstructure segments, allowing shipping traffic to the Port of Toledo to continue uninterrupted during the entire construction process. It carries Interstate 280 traffic over the Maumee River, approximately one mile east of downtown Toledo, Ohio. The Maumee is the largest tributary to the Great Lakes, emptying into the western end of Lake Erie and at the location of the bridge it is approximately 300 m wide. Because of its size and location, the Maumee serves as access to the Port of Toledo, one of the busiest ports in the Great Lakes shipping system. Interstate 280 is a heavily traveled truck route and serves as the fastest land connection between the industrialized cities of Cleveland, Ohio and Detroit, Michigan. Approximately 70 000 vehicles use this portion of I-280 each day, with a large percentage of those being trucks involved in interstate commerce. The new cablestayed bridge replaces one of the few remaining movable bascule bridges on the Interstate system.