'Love locks' on Pittsburgh's Clemente Bridge to find new life as 19-month closure looms

Two decades’ worth of love locks on Pittsburgh’s Roberto Clemente Bridge will not be love lost, but rather removed and donated for an art project when the bridge shuts down for planned rehab work on Valentine’s Day.

The closure is part of a larger rehab of the Sister Bridges across the Allegheny River that began in 2016 with the closure of the Warhol Bridge for upgrades and a fresh coat of paint. That work was completed in 2017, and the Rachel Carson Bridge work was completed in 2020. The timeline for the Clemente Bridge project was announced in July.

The bridge will close to all traffic, including pedestrian traffic, at 6 a.m. Feb. 14, and remain closed through December 2023. Funding for the $34.4 million rehab project is coming from the Federal Highway Administration, Allegheny County and PennDOT.

Allegheny County officials estimated there are around 11,000 love locks on the bridge, which will be removed and donated to the Industrial Arts Workshop of Hazelwood – a nonprofit focused on teaching children a variety of art forms, from welding and engineering to sculpture and artistic literacy.

The director of the workshop, Tim Kaulen, is no stranger to county-owned bridges and their unsanctioned art. In 2018, he repainted the beloved “Dino Geese” on the 10th Street Bridge after it was repainted. A petition garnered nearly 1,000 signatures asking the county to save the painted geese, and council voted to allow Kaulen to repaint them.

The county reached out to Kaulen again in July after receiving feedback about the fate of the locks during a public comment period.

Kaulen said he is excited by the art opportunity the locks present.

“It doesn’t take much imagination to visualize the web of connections between these locks and the journeys they took to reach such a special place in our community,” he said.

County Public Works Director Stephen Shanley said his department is always looking to lessen the environmental impact of its projects.

“Finding a way for the locks to be reused was a top priority for us,” he said.

Those who placed locks on the bridge are encouraged to remove them before the bridge shuts down. Those left behind will be cut off and put toward the art project. In the meantime, officials asked people to stop adding locks to any county-owned bridges.

“The Roberto Clemente Bridge is one of the most beautiful bridges and locations in the country, so we understand why couples might want to symbolize their love by placing a lock there,” Shanley said. “That being said, our mission is to protect this important public asset from damage and to keep it as beautiful as possible. The locks make that job more difficult and costly.”

The work includes a slew of improvements. It will include repairs to the bridge’s structural steel, concrete substructure and stairs on the Downtown side, and replacement of the concrete deck, sidewalks and expansion dams. The bridge and its handrails also will be repainted.