NSBA Has Recognized the Country’s Best Bridges for 91 Years. Is Yours Next?

CHICAGO – Have you recently worked on a bridge that embodies the pioneering spirit of modern bridge-building? The National Steel Bridge Alliance and the American Institute of Steel Construction want to hear about it!

The 2020 Prize Bridge Awards are now open for entries! We’re looking for outstanding bridges that showcase the innovative use of structural steel. The competition will accept entries until September 27, 2019.

Steel bridges have a proud history. They have connected communities over the course of decades or even centuries. Steel bridges endure, as does our commitment to showcasing the best of bridge engineering and architecture.

Our panel of judges will consider entries in several categories defined by bridge size and function, weighing each project’s innovation, economics, aesthetics, design, and engineering solutions. If you win, you’ll be featured in a presentation to the industry at the World Steel Bridge Symposium at NASCC: The Steel Conference in Atlanta, April 22-24, 2020. We will also feature your award winning bridge in the June 2020 issue of Modern Steel Constructionmagazine.

Visit aisc.org/prizebridge for more information and to enter.

Eligibility Requirements

Eligible bridges must be:

• Built of structural steel
• Located in the U.S., defined as the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and all U.S. territories
• Completed and opened to traffic between January 1, 2017, and December 31, 2019.

Any team member from an eligible bridge project may submit it for award consideration.

If you want to submit a pedestrian bridge that is an intrinsic part of a building for award consideration, we encourage you to enter it in AISC’s IDEAS2 Awards competition.

History of the Prize Bridge Awards

In 1928, the American Institute of Steel Construction awarded its first Prize Bridge Award to the Sixth Street Bridge in Pittsburgh, which would later be renamed to honor the legendary Pittsburgh Pirates right fielder Roberto Clemente.

Since then, AISC and the National Steel Bridge Alliance have recognized more than 600 outstanding steel bridges across the country. Some bridges, such as the Wabash Railroad bridge in Wayne County, Mich., that won a prize in 1941 and still carries railroad traffic more than 70 years later, have actually outlasted the companies that built them.