Hoan Bridge

The Hoan Bridge

The Daniel Hoan Memorial Bridge is a tied arch bridge that connects Interstate 794 in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin to the Lake Freeway across the inner harbor. It is named after Daniel Hoan, a former mayor of Milwaukee.

It was designed by the firm Howard, Needles, Tammen & Bergendoff and in 1975 won the American Institute of Steel Construction (ASIC) Long Span Bridge Award.

Although construction on the bridge lasted briefly from 1970 until 1972, it did not open to traffic until 1977 due to public backlash against the planned Milwaukee County freeway system. This halted completion of the connecting roadways and led to the Hoan Bridge being known as "The Bridge to Nowhere." Its unfinished state was used as the site of the car chase scene in the movie The Blues Brothers.

The Hoan Bridge was temporarily closed in 2000 after two of three support beams failed, causing the north-bound lane to buckle and sag by several feet, leaving the span in a near collapsed state. Incredibly, no motorists were injured when the bridge failed. On December 18, 2000 engineers used explosives to remove the damaged section. After reconstruction of the failed span (and extensive rehabilitation and retrofitting of the remainder of the bridge), the Hoan Bridge fully reopened in November 2001.

Experts believe that improperly designed transverse beams (which tie the three support beams together) along with a period of extreme cold and snow led to the partial collapse of the Hoan Bridge.

External links

• Wisconsin Highways
• Failure Analysis
• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper archive of Hoan bridge failure event