AKRON — Seventy-three years of steel came down in a matter of seconds Sunday morning. A controlled explosion at 8 a.m. sent the central arches of Akron’s retired state Route 8 bridge tumbling into the Little Cuyahoga River valley below, clearing the way for the bridge’s modern replacement.
Officials and project coordinators estimated the blast would register at 142 decibels, and the roughly 50 people gathered at an Ohio Department of Transportation viewing area about a half-mile east of the blast zone could feel the sound wave as the charges fired. The detonation removed 648 linear feet of the bridge’s truss arch structure.
The 1,582-foot-long bridge, built in 1953, stood 180 feet tall and 82-and-a-half feet wide, with a 940-foot truss arch span. It carried 121,740 vehicles a day, including 11,000 trucks, serving as a key north-south commuter and trucking route between Akron and the Cleveland and Canton areas. ODOT said replacement is more cost-efficient than continuing frequent repairs on the aging structure.
The $158 million replacement project, led by ODOT with The Ruhlin Company and Great Lakes Construction, began in August 2023 and is expected to finish in 2028. Two parallel spans will replace the single original bridge; the first — the southbound span — is already complete and is carrying both directions of traffic until its partner is built.
Sunday’s demolition marked a key milestone for one of the region’s most consequential highway projects. Crews will continue removing the old structure alongside the partially completed new spans in the coming months.