{"id":93443,"date":"2025-07-08T12:11:48","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T16:11:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/?p=93443"},"modified":"2025-07-17T08:56:40","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T12:56:40","slug":"building-bridges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/07_08_2025\/building-bridges","title":{"rendered":"Building Bridges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The University of Toledo hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony today to celebrate the opening of a new pedestrian bridge over Douglas Road that will improve campus safety and connectivity.<\/p>\n<p>The $3.4 million project \u2014 which got underway in July 2024 \u2014 links Centennial Mall, Savage Arena and the Glass Bowl to UToledo\u2019s engineering complex and the adjacent neighborhood that many students call home.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_93444\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-93444\" class=\"wp-image-93444\" src=\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/07082025-4065.jpg\" alt=\"Photo of the UToledo ribbon cutting ceremony for the new bridge, featuring, from left, Rocky, Interim President Matt Schroeder, U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, student body president Iryna Snahoshchenko, student body vice president Jaden Bollinger, Ohio Rep. Michele Grim, Jason Toth, senior associate vice president for administration, and Rocksy.\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" srcset=\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/07082025-4065.jpg 748w, https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/07082025-4065-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-93444\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">UToledo hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony today to celebrate the opening of a new pedestrian bridge over Douglas Road. From left, Interim President Matt Schroeder, U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, student body president Iryna Snahoshchenko, student body vice president Jaden Bollinger, Ohio Rep. Michele Grim, and Jason Toth, senior associate vice president for administration.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\u201cAs we\u2019ve talked about over the last year or so, the vision for The University of Toledo is to create a destination for not only our students but our community,\u201d Interim President Matt Schroeder said. \u201cWhat better way than to literally build a bridge connecting the west side of our campus over to the east side with the engineering campus and the Bancroft Hills neighborhood?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Additional speakers at the ceremony included U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur and student body president Iryna Snahoshchenko.<\/p>\n<p>The primary purpose of the 78-foot-long bridge is to provide a safer way for students, employees and campus visitors to cross Douglas Road. Thousands of vehicles travel that stretch of road daily and there previously was only one designated crossing between University Hills Boulevard and Dorr Street, leading many students to dart across the road.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to improving pedestrian and motorist safety, the footbridge also helps to better link UToledo\u2019s campus to the surrounding community, tying in to both the Chessie Circle Trail and the University\/Parks Trail.<\/p>\n<p>The new crossing is located near Savage Arena on the western side of Douglas and the intersection of Marwood Avenue and North Westwood Avenue on the eastern side of the road.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-93445\" src=\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/07082025-4252.jpg\" alt=\"Photo of the new pedestrian bridge over Douglas Road, with people crossing the bridge as cars drive underneath it.\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" srcset=\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/07082025-4252.jpg 748w, https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/07082025-4252-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-93446\" src=\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/07082025-4175a.jpg\" alt=\"Pedestrians including Rocky and Rocksy cross over the new pedestrian bridge over Douglas Road.\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" srcset=\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/07082025-4175a.jpg 748w, https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/07082025-4175a-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AvAic4Z8rvk?si=bpUZr2Q9hcC3ABnz\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<a href=\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/07_08_2025\/building-bridges\"><img width=\"120\" height=\"120\" src=\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/07082025-4065-150x150.jpg\" class=\"alignright tfe wp-post-image\" alt=\"Photo of the UToledo ribbon cutting ceremony for the new bridge, featuring, from left, Rocky, Interim President Matt Schroeder, U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, student body president Iryna Snahoshchenko, student body vice president Jaden Bollinger, Ohio Rep. Michele Grim, Jason Toth, senior associate vice president for administration, and Rocksy.\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/a><p>UToledo hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony today to celebrate the completion of its new Douglas Road pedestrian bridge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":93444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,34,1,7],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93443"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93443"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93454,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93443\/revisions\/93454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}