P is for Purple #AtoZChallenge

Join me on the A to Z Challenge: I'll share a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati, every day for 26 days in April.

We made it all the way to the 19th without me mentioning bike/ped infrastructure once! And let's not talk about one of the reasons being that there's not much worth writing home about. (Cincinnati is a Bronze-level Bicycle Friendly Community, but I've no idea how they managed that.)

It's kind of a greyish-purple. I hear it used to be purpler.

But today's subject, the Purple People Bridge, is apparently worth writing something about. At various points in its lifespan, it's carried trains, horses and carts, streetcars, motor vehicles, and people. One by one, all conveyances except humans (and the bicycles, rollerblades, skateboards, etc. that carry us) were banned from the bridge, which was placed on the National Register in 2001.

My sister-in-law Jennie, who I naturally dragged onto the bridge when she was in town, says she remembers driving over it (or more accurately, being passengered over it) when she was a kid. I have no such remembrances, probably because on family trips we never went deep enough into Cincy to get to that bridge. My grandpa stuck to the interstate and hauled caravan as fast as he could through all population centers to get us to Somewhere On a Hill Where His Parents Lived, Kentucky. (I treasure the memories of my visits to my great-grandparents' home. I do not treasure any thought of the drives there and back again.)

Clockwise from top left: The ever-gorgeous Sharlie enjoying her bridge
visit; some people can't see a bridge and not put a lock on it;
unintentional selfie when I was trying to take a pic into the sun
without getting off  my bike and hadn't noticed that I'd flipped my camera;
evening sun over the Ohio River.

Where was I? Purple People Bridge, right. In addition to being a car-free passage between two entertainment districts, it also connects the bike/ped paths on either side, such as they are. Plus you get nice views of the Cincy skyline (sorry, Newport, but you don't have one of those) and the other bridges over the Ohio. Most importantly, it's a direct path to the nearest Barnes and Noble, on the rare occasion that Joseph-Beth doesn't have what I'm looking for.