Why Richmond, Why?!?: The Richmond Bridge to Nowhere

Why was the Leigh Street Viaduct built? It's so large and gets so little traffic. Did it get more traffic decades ago? It seems like a bridge to nowhere. I’d love to know more about it and the Marshall Street Viaduct it replaced.

Wren Lanier

Dear Wren,

The 2,100-foot, six-lane bridge that connects Leigh Street on the west side of Shockoe Valley with O and Mosby streets on the east side of the valley is technically named the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Bridge. It opened in 1976 amid a flurry of urban planning projects and was funded with a combination of local, state and federal dollars. The King Memorial Bridge replaced the Marshall Street Viaduct, a four-lane structure of some legend here in town. Both structures were built for the same purpose—to connect Church Hill and the East End to the city center and alleviate congestion on Broad Street.

The original viaduct opened in 1911 to pedestrian, streetcar, horse and vehicular traffic and charged tolls for each until 1934, when it became property of the Richmond Bridge Corporation. This new, flat way to cross Shockoe Valley was a big deal for East End residents, who previously had to traipse up and down hills to get downtown. The metal and wood structure stood atop 90-foot-high steel supports and had two notable features.

First, an elevator ran from the top of the bridge to the bottom for passengers wishing to transfer from the 18th Street streetcar line in Shockoe Valley to the line that crossed the bridge. A ride in the elevator cost 5 cents. Take that, other bridges.

Second, the viaduct was built directly above the former Richmond City Jail, creating a useful way for friends and families of inmates to drop contraband to prisoners in the jail yard. (Richmonders—so clever.) Eventually, a high wire screen was erected overtop of the jail, spoiling all the fun.

In 1934, the viaduct underwent its only major rehabilitation, which was financed by tolls collected on the Lee Bridge just up the river. Thirty years later, the Marshall Street Viaduct was condemned by the city, considered unsafe for vehicular traffic because of serious structural damage and erosion. People reported seeing the bridge visibly sway back and forth. Rumors circulated that it had been neglected on purpose. Some folks believed it could simply be repaired. The time had come to make a decision.

Heated conversations followed. By this point, the city jail had moved to its current location at Oliver Hill Way and Fairfield Way, a few blocks north. Then State Senator and Church Hill resident L. Douglas Wilder lobbied hard for a new bridge. With the opening of the Manchester Bridge in 1972, the construction of the new Richmond Coliseum and City Hall, the recent merging of Virginia Commonwealth University and the Medical College of Virginia, and the looming Downtown Expressway, he saw no reason why the East End should be left out. Opponents were concerned about the bridge’s effect on the west side of the valley, where a few medical college buildings stood in the path of the proposed Leigh Street extension.

Finally, the doomed Marshall Street Viaduct was demolished in 1973 and work began immediately on a replacement, designed by the New York firm Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade and Douglas. More than two years and $23 million later, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Bridge opened to traffic in September 1976, with Senator Wilder and Mayor Thomas Bliley, Jr. in attendance. Vice Mayor Henry L. Marsh III remarked that the bridge was "symbolic of the kind of unity Dr. King talked of and worked for and is a symbolic beginning for Richmond." A few months later, the city affixed commemorative plaques to each end of the bridge.

Thirty five years later, the bridge seems to be in good shape. I was unable to determine its current traffic volume, but I suspect it’s less than that of busier bridges up the river. Is it then, as Marsh suggested, more of a symbolic structure? Is it a well-kept secret for those East End residents wishing to avoid congestion on Broad and Main streets? Does it create safer and faster ambulance access to VCU? Will I ever write a post that doesn’t answer a question with more questions? I don’t know, but next time I travel to Church Hill from, say, the Court End neighborhood, it won’t be via bumpy old Broad Street.

Note: This post is based on information found in the Archives at the Valentine Richmond History Center.

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