Description
The 1,660-foot (510 m) long tied-arch bridge carries four lanes of concurrent highways I-70, US 40 and US 250 over the main channel of the Ohio River between Wheeling Island and downtown Wheeling, West Virginia. The bridge is the easternmost portion of a 1-mile (1.6 km) long chain of elevated structures spanning Wheeling Creek in Ohio, the Ohio River back channel, Wheeling Island, and the main channel. To the east of the bridge after an interchange in downtown Wheeling, I-70 and US 250 enter the Wheeling Tunnel. Besides the Wheeling Suspension Bridge, the Fort Henry Bridge is the only fixed connection from Wheeling Island to mainland West Virginia. The bridge is named after Fort Henry, which in turn was named after Patrick Henry, the governor of Virginia Territory at the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War.
Truck traffic is prohibited from using the Wheeling Suspension Bridge and must take the Fort Henry Bridge to cross between downtown Wheeling and Wheeling Island. The bridge is owned and maintained by the State of West Virginia. Every year, the West Virginia Department of Transportation (WVDOT) conducts a series of surveys on its highways in the state to measure traffic volume. This is expressed in terms of average annual daily traffic (AADT), which is a measure of traffic volume for any average day of the year. In 2009, WVDOT calculated that 60,070 vehicles used the Fort Henry Bridge over the main channel of the Ohio River. This represents a 334 percent increase in traffic from 1956, the first year traffic data was published, when 18,000 vehicles used the bridge.
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