Montopolis Bridge

Montopolis Bridge
Viewed from the north in 2013
Coordinates	30°14′44″N 97°41′29″W / 30.24542°N 97.69136°W / 30.24542; -97.69136
Carries	Bicycle and pedestrian crossing (formerly US 183 frontage road)
Crosses	Colorado River
Locale	Austin, Texas
Owner	State of Texas
ID number	142270026501034
Characteristics
Design	Parker through truss
Material	Steel
Total length	1,221 feet (372 m)
Width	24 feet (7.3 m)
Longest span	200 feet (61 m)
No. of spans	9
Clearance above	19 feet (5.8 m)
No. of lanes	2
History
Designer	Texas Highway Department
Constructed by	Vincennes Steel Corporation
Construction start	February 15, 1937
Construction cost	$232,000
Opened	February 11, 1938 (1938-February-11)
Montopolis Bridge
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
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Coordinates	30°14′44″N 97°41′29″W / 30.24556°N 97.69139°W / 30.24556; -97.69139
Area	less than 1 acre (0.40 ha)
MPS	Historic Bridges of Texas MPS
NRHP reference No.	96001118[1]
Added to NRHP	October 10, 1996

The Montopolis Bridge is a historic Parker through truss bridge in Austin, Texas. It is located in the Montopolis neighborhood where a bicycle and pedestrian walkway crosses the Colorado River in southeastern Travis County. The bridge consists of five 200-foot Parker through truss spans and four 52-foot steel I-beam approach spans resting on reinforced concrete abutments. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 10, 1996.^[2] The Montopolis Bridge sits at the best crossing of the Colorado River in the area with the historic crossing of the El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail just to the east.^[3]

On June 15, 1935, the city of Austin suffered a devastating flood along the Colorado River. The original Montopolis bridge, built by Travis County in the late 1880s, was one of five bridges washed away by the flood. The Texas Highway Department designed the current bridge and requested federal emergency relief funds from the Bureau of Public Roads to rebuild it.^[4] Work on the bridge began on February 15, 1937. The bridge was completed on February 11, 1938, by Vincennes Steel Corporation under contract to the Highway Department at a cost of nearly $232,000 (equivalent to $5,020,000 in 2023).^[5]

The Montopolis Bridge remained in use until 2018 and, as one of the principal routes to the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport from Downtown Austin, was fairly busy. The southbound frontage of U.S. 183, Airport Boulevard and East 7th Street all merge at the north side of the bridge. In 2006, 29,200 vehicles crossed on average each day. The bridge was decommissioned for vehicular traffic on October 8, 2018,^[6] and was subsequently converted to a bicycle and pedestrian bridge as part of the Bergstrom Expressway Project.^[7]

• 
  Deck during conversion to pedestrian use in 2020
• 
  Austin skyline from the bridge
• 
  The Colorado River in the Montopolis area

• List of crossings of the Colorado River
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Travis County, Texas
• List of bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Texas

• Media related to Montopolis Bridge at Wikimedia Commons