| Platte River Bridge | |
|---|---|
The Platte River Pedestrian Bridge in Denver, Colorado. | |
| Coordinates | 39°45′23″N105°00′24″W / 39.7564°N 105.0068°W Coordinates: 39°45′23″N105°00′24″W / 39.7564°N 105.0068°W |
| Carries | Pedestrians |
| Locale | Denver, Colorado |
| Characteristics | |
| Design | Cable-stayed bridge |
| Total length | 325 feet (99 m) |
The Platte River Bridge is the second of three pedestrian bridges to connect Downtown Denver with the Highland neighborhood.
Downtown Denver is the main financial, commercial, and entertainment district in Denver, Colorado. There is over 23,000,000 sq ft (2,100,000 m2) of office space in downtown Denver, with 130,000 workers. The downtown area can be divided into six or seven main districts: Union Station, LoDo, Ball Park, Central Downtown, Civic Center, Upper Downtown, and Arapahoe Square. Within those districts are many smaller features, districts and squares. Some of the more popular features include the 16th Street pedestrian mall, built in 1982, Larimer Square, the re-emerging Theatre District near Curtis and 14th, and Civic Center Park. Surrounding neighborhoods include Capitol Hill and Uptown to the east, Highland to the west, Five Points to the north, and the Golden Triangle to the south.
Highland is a distinct city-center neighborhood in Denver, Colorado, bounded by West 38th Avenue to the north, a Union Pacific Railroad line on the east, the South Platte River to the southeast, Speer Boulevard on the south, and Federal Boulevard on the west. The Highlands is sometimes used to refer to two separate city-center neighborhoods in Denver, Highland and West Highland, in although the two neighborhoods are distinct. Highland and West Highland are both in the area that is referred to as North Denver. is located immediately northwest of downtown. Note that the Highland neighborhood association has a slightly different definition with the easternmost boundary stopping at I-25. And the West Highland neighborhood to the immediate west of Highland, with the borders of 38th and 29th Avenues on the north and south and Federal and Sheridan Boulevards on the east and west. To distinguish between its immediately adjacent neighbor, West Highland, Highland is sometimes referred to as East Highland, Lower Highland or LoHi. The two together are casually called "the Highlands," a term which often falsely encompasses other Northwest Denver neighborhoods such as Jefferson Park, Sunnyside and Berkeley. Realtors have particularly pushed the inclusion of the recently gentrified Berkeley, located directly north of West Highland, as part of the Highlands, sometimes going so far as to refer to Berkeley and parts of Sunnyside as the "Upper Highlands". To add further confusion, within the Highlands neighborhoods there are several historic designations of various degrees, including Potter Highlands, Scottish Highlands and Highlands Park.
The cable-stayed bridge crosses the South Platte River between Commons Park and Commons West Apartments along the former 16th street viaduct.
A cable-stayed bridge has one or more towers, from which cables support the bridge deck. A distinctive feature are the cables or stays, which run directly from the tower to the deck, normally forming a fan-like pattern or a series of parallel lines. This is in contrast to the modern suspension bridge, where the cables supporting the deck are suspended vertically from the main cable, anchored at both ends of the bridge and running between the towers. The cable-stayed bridge is optimal for spans longer than cantilever bridges and shorter than suspension bridges. This is the range within which cantilever bridges would rapidly grow heavier, and suspension bridge cabling would be more costly.
The South Platte River is one of the two principal tributaries of the Platte River. Flowing through the U.S. states of Colorado and Nebraska, it is itself a major river of the American Midwest and the American Southwest/Mountain West. Its drainage basin includes much of the eastern flank of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado; much of the populated region known as the Colorado Front Range and Eastern Plains; and a portion of southeastern Wyoming in the vicinity of the city of Cheyenne. It joins the North Platte River in western Nebraska to form the Platte, which then flows across Nebraska to the Missouri. The river serves as the principal source of water for eastern Colorado. In its valley along the foothills in Colorado, it has permitted agriculture in an area of the Colorado Piedmont and Great Plains that is otherwise arid.
