Kentucky/Ohio Roads - Newport Southbank Br.

Newport Southbank "Purple People" Bridge


The color looks innocuous enough against the hazy sky until you compare it to the yellow Daniel Carter Beard (I-471) bridge to the east. This isn't the bridge for Purple People, it's the purple bridge that carries people. And on a cloudy day, birds may accidentally crash into it.


There's a center stripe on the dead-end roadway leading to the entrance because until 2001, cars still used the west side of the bridge between Newport and Cincinnati. Trains ran through the east side until 1987. Streetcars may have run through either the east side as well or straight down the middle.


This was the Newport & Cincinnati Bridge in 1896 before becoming the Newport Southbank Bridge several years later. The original bridge here was built in 1872 and then rebuilt on the same piers. Various pieces were added and refined over the years, so there is a hodgepodge of truss architecture along the way.


To the west, heading straight into downtown Cincinnati, is the Taylor-Southgate Bridge, this one with a hyphen. It replaced the Central Bridge and carries US 27. It's standing in the way of the much more historic and beautiful Roebling Bridge.

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