Tuesday, March 09, 1999

Fort Washington Way gets blues (greens too)

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BY TANYA ALBERT
The Cincinnati Enquirer

A periwinkle blue beam is stalled Monday on the Fort Washington Way project. (Michael E. Keating photo) | ZOOM |

        Fort Washington Way, meet Martha Stewart.

The battleship gray that's traditionally covered highway bridges is passe and the new Fort Washington Way is getting a splash of color.

        Hues of sea green, periwinkle blue, a muted teal and a greenish-turquoise will coat the bridges at the eastern and western ends of the highway along the downtown riverfront.

        The first set of steel beams — a periwinkle blue — took their place on the western end of the project Monday.

        “It's got more life to it than the standard gray,” said Cincinnati City Architect Bob Richardson. “We've been trying to liven up the highways over the years, give them a little more spirit.”

        Over the past few years, orange earth tone colors were added along Interstate 71. On Interstate 75, dark red paint replaced the traditional gray. Both colors were chosen because they fit in with the surrounding architecture.

        City planners have 47 color families to choose from, with many more choices in each family of the Federal Standard Colors Used in Government Procurement binder. And they all cost the same as the traditional grays.

        The goal in moving away from gray: Make infrastructure that drivers and pedestrians pass by day after day more aesthetically pleasing.

        The blues and greens on Fort Washington Way were chosen to blend in with the landscaping planned on each end of the projects, Mr. Richardson said.

        As people cross under the series of bridges on Central Avenue or Broadway, they'll see toned down colors on the outer beams and brighter beams on the inside bridges. Drivers headed toward downtown from I-75 and other edges of downtown, too, will get a glimpse of the color scheme that could be straight out of Ms. Stewart's magazine, Living.

       

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