Northaven Trail Pedestrian Bridge Expected to Open This Fall

The Northaven Trail pedestrian overpass on North Central Expressway is expected to open in October, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

The 201-foot-long bridge is designed to connect the Northaven Trail to trails on the east side of North Central Expressway, such as the White Rock Creek Trail, Cottonwood Creek Trail, and SoPac Trail.

Jeff Kitner, president of Friends of Northaven Trail and the District 11 representative on the Dallas Park and Recreation Board, says the bridge will connect disparate communities.

“This will allow the city to really open up for everybody and will allow people who are on the east side to connect and see the beautiful Northaven Trail as well too,” Kitner said. “I think our city and our region are moving in the right direction by adding in more trails like these, more connection points to really open up our communities.”

The overpass was approved in spring 2021, and construction has been ongoing for over a year. The bridge is complete and sitting near the Studio Movie Grill near North Central Expressway and Royal Lane. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is working with its contractor to create a bridge load plan to install it over the highway.

Once the bridge is loaded, there will be about a month of engineering work to do final tie-ins before it can be open to the public.

The bridge is unique in that it has a doubly curved deck, making it the only network-tied arch bridge in the world with two curves on the bridge deck.

“It’s complicated because no bridge like this has ever been completed in the United States before, according to TXDOT,” Kitner said.

The idea for the bridge came from former Council Member Lee Kleinman and others involved in the Friends of Northaven Trail in the early 2000s.

“Council Member Kleinman and others were at the forefront of thinking about, ‘How do we make this connection?’ and the idea to do a bridge over the highway came about, and I and others have been helping push it forward since then,” Kitner said.

The bridge project, with an estimated cost of $9.3 million, is funded primarily by TxDOT, but city and county funding, as well as contributions from the Friends of Northaven Trail, have also been put toward it.

“This project started a couple of years ago, and since the beginning, we’ve worked very closely with the city, the county, and the Friends to establish the vision for the project and also to keep in contact during construction,” said Tony Hartzel, spokesman for the TxDOT Dallas District.

The bridge will be installed over one weekend in September, Hartzel said, but the date depends on the bridge load plan. The installation will take two nights — on night one, the bridge will be moved next to the highway, and on night two it will be hoisted into place.

The installation will be overnight because it will require the highway to be shut down.

Hartzel said the project is on schedule, but they’ve seen challenges getting the bridge together and obtaining materials.

“We recognize at TxDOT that this piece of the trail is very important,” Hartzel said. “It replaces that underpass that goes under Central right now and provides a community focal point for North Dallas as well. It’s been a long time coming. A lot of people have worked on it from all aspects, and we’re just ready to get it done.”