August 15, 2024
Chris Compendio/PhillyVoice
Noble Street Bridge between Broad and 12th streets goes over 13th St. and will be closed indefinitely. Pedestrians and bicyclists will still be able to cross over through Rail Park.
The Noble Street Bridge — a span in the Callowhill neighborhood that is only as long as 13th Street, which passes below it, is wide – is closed indefinitely because of its deteriorating condition, the Philadelphia Department of Streets said on Wednesday.
The tiny bridge is notable mainly because it is situated at the west end of the city's Rail Park, the quarter-mile long, elevated, public space that opened in 2018 built atop the fromer Reading Railroad Viaduct. Noble is a little street that runs east to west, parallel to Hamilton and Callowhill streets and stopping at North Broad Street.
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The Rail Park remains open and is unaffected by the bridge closure, and pedestrians and cyclists will use the park to cross 13th Street instead of the roadway portion of the bridge, the streets department said.
By midday Wednesday, concrete barricades were already in place to block both ends of the bridge to traffic. Signs will be hung at Broad and Noble streets to alert drivers, but there will be no detour signs posted.
The streets department said the Noble Street Bridge's steel support beams could no longer bear the weight of vehicular traffic and closure is to "ensure the safety of the traveling public."
Data the Federal Highway Administration's National Bridge Inventory shows the Noble Street Bridge had an average daily traffic of 150 vehicles in 2019. The bridge, constructed in 1892 and reconstructed in 2018, is list in "poor" condition in the NBI.
