Carter Road Bridge & Railroad Bridge

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Today's installment in The Bridges of Cuyahoga County is a two-fer: The Carter Road Bridge, in Cleveland's Flats district, and an adjacent disused railroad bridge. At this point you might be wondering just how many bridges Cleveland has, since this occasional series has been going on for about a year and a half now. The answer is many, many bridges, and I really only have photos of a few of them, and I've already posted most of those. Once I've worked my way through all of those, I suppose it'll be time for me to go back and take more tourist photos. But maybe not during the winter next time. Lingering around to capture interesting angles and details of these bridges just didn't seem like a really sterling idea, given the cold and wind and impending snow. I just sort of strolled by and snapped a few quick photos on my way back to the Terminal Tower Rapid station, so I could head over to Ohio City to hit the West Side Market and then decide which brewpub to visit.

So, a few tidbits I was able to dig up about the road bridge:

• Bridges & Tunnels has an extensive history piece about this bridge. It notes that this bridge was built in 1939 and is the fourth Carter Road Bridge. The first bridge, built in 1853, collapsed when it was overloaded with cattle.
• HistoricBridges.org gripes that the bridge's central span was replaced at some point, and the replacement uses bolts instead of rivets, which (we're told) lacks historical integrity.
• The bridge's BridgeHunter entry includes the usual collection of geeky bridge facts. As of 2011 the bridge actually had a sufficiency rating of 91 out of 100, which is the highest I've seen in a long time. So that's great, assuming this bridge goes somewhere you want to go.
• Cleveland Memory has a number of historic photos of the bridge.

The abandoned railroad bridge next door was built in 1955 as the "Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, and St. Louis Railroad Bridge Number 5" -- the Flats Industrial Railroad Bridge was once the same railroad's Bridge Number 4. This bridge replaced a previous 1902 rail bridge. I can't find a lot of info about it, which is pretty common with railroad bridges, but HistoricBridges.org finds it sort of interesting:

This bridge is interesting because it is of decent length, but the truss span is not a polygonal Warren; it features parallel chords. Its towers do not taper in toward the top either, giving this bridge a boxy appearance. The bridge appears to retain good historic integrity.

So at least it has that going for it, I suppose.