Western Hills Viaduct
Nearly 100 years of Service
Considerable difficulty attended the construction of the span. It was found necessary to sink foundation piles as deep as 200 feet before bedrock was reached, and the engineers had to curve a portion of the span. Indirect illumination was used on this viaduct for the first time in Cincinnati; the lights look like twin strands of pearls when the bridge is viewed from the hills at night. The entire Union Terminal development and almost four miles of Mill Creek Valley can be seen from the viaduct.
During the 1937 flood only this span was usable to reach the Western Hills.
(American Guide Series: Cincinnati, 1943)
Clearing Eastern Section of Viaduct for Mill Creek Expressway, 1961
Plan to adapt the viaduct to fit the new expressway infrastructure from 1954. Creating awkward on and off ramps to connect the expressway with Fairmount and largely the West Side. The final plan closely resembled this newspaper clipping.
The reconstructed portion following the construction of Interstate I-75 was replaced by generic overpasses and on and off-ramps.
The viaduct is slated to be demolished in 2030 after the completion of its replacement. Since half of the viaduct was torn down in the 60s, the Mill Creek side is the last remaining original portion of the viaduct. The demolition is not without reason; the viaduct has served its purpose. The iron girders that support the viaduct were cast in concrete, making them nearly impossible to replace, and the concrete has begun to crack and spall. Cincinnati will be losing a significant piece of architecture and history, nevertheless.
The viaduct has had to shift how it has served Cincinnati's traffic needs many times. Originally, the top deck was for bus and passenger cars, although trucks and passenger cars could use the lower deck with the streetcars. Streetcars were separated from vehicular traffic at the west end by two tunnels from the lower deck of the viaduct. Both decks were given 40-foot roadways. Only the upper level had sidewalks for pedestrians.
A transfer station was provided under the West Deck. A system of automatic block signals, interlocked with electrically operated track switches, controlled the operation of Crosstown cars entering West Plaza through a tunnel from the south and the other three lines entering from the northwest.
(top) South Ramp of the lower deck today. Gated and used to store equipment for firestation on State Ave.
The north ramp from the lower level exits on Harrison Avenue it had two tracks turning onto Beekman for the North Fairmount line and two tracks continued on Harrison for the John Street and Westwood lines. This old streetcar ramp is now used for automobile traffic exiting onto Harrison Avenue from the viaduct.
The transfer station was remodeled in the 1970s to better fit vehicular traffic, during the viaducts first and only rehabilitation.
The only other surviving function of the viaduct besides carrying vehicular traffic is carrying a water main. To the south, it carried a gas main, but it was removed sometime in the mid-to-late 1990s to early 2000s. These sides were never intended to be walkways.
The colosseum roadway, the viaduct, became a vital traffic artery to the western part of the Queen City. It aged with the city and adapted to its needs, serving the city for nearly 100 years.
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