In the City of Bridges, even the bridges have bridges.

The Fort Duquesne Bridge has a diminutive sidekick, the better to accommodate pedestrians and bicyclists traveling between Downtown and the North Shore.

	Bill Wade, Post-Gazette West End Bridge during afternoon rush hour, seen from Mount Washington during Fort Pitt Bridge and tunnel construction work in 2002. Click photo for larger image.

And by 2020 or sooner, if all goes well, the West End Bridge will have an adjunct, too, for walkers, bike riders and those who just want to enjoy a spectacular upriver view of the Point. More than 100 individuals or teams are competing to design the addition, and 85 of their concepts go on public view for three days beginning tomorrow at Alcoa Corporate Center on the North Shore.

The entries also will be available online for about a month, also beginning tomorrow, at www.riverlifecompetition.org.

"The West End Bridge is a beautiful, historic icon," the gateway to Pittsburgh and the bridge that frames the confluence, said Lisa Schroeder, director of the Pittsburgh Riverlife Taskforce. "But it is disconnected from the riverfronts, the trail system and from the communities that are adjacent to the rivers."

Riverlife and the Alcoa Foundation are sponsoring the design competition with an eye to making it easier, safer and less harrowing to cross the Ohio on foot, 66 feet above the river. Pedestrians and cyclists who now want to use the West End Bridge must travel across an open lot on the North Shore and several lanes of traffic on the South Side to get to or from the steep staircases that lead to it and its narrow sidewalks.

The intention is to solve the problem by attaching a new structure to the existing bridge. But Riverlife is looking for more than just a basic pedestrian bridge.

Competitors were asked to envision an "internationally prominent, architecturally significant solution" and a functional work of art "worthy of the 'City of Bridges.' " The competition brief calls for a contemporary, "visionary" bridge that also celebrates the existing historic bridge, completed in 1932.

A requirement was establishing connections with the adjacent neighborhoods and to provide ideas for new water landings for boaters on both the north and south shores. Their designs, the brief said, should "celebrate the location of the bridge as a place for trail users, boaters, community residents and visitors of all ages to meet, cross paths and interact."

Ms. Schroeder said "the entries propose solving that connection gap in many different ways."

For example: "There are solutions that envision cantilevered walkways from the existing bridge with ramps to the riverfront. There are walkways and connections that are suspended; there are walkways above and below the bridge deck level and in some cases both; there are glass tube structures and space-frame elements. There are amorphous shapes and others that are highly geometric. There are concepts for connecting to the water itself, to the shoreline and even to Mount Washington. We are very excited by the range of solutions."

When completed, the bridge will close the loop in the trails being created around the city's three rivers. Making better connections is crucial to realizing the 10-mile-long Three Rivers Park, proposed by Riverlife consultant Alex Krieger in 2001. It would stretch from the West End Bridge to the 10th Street Bridge over the Monongahela River and to the 16th Street Bridge over the Allegheny.

The competition is a hybrid one; in addition to the 85 entrants in the open competition, 23 design firms are competing by invitation.

"We wanted to encourage students and undiscovered designers as well as highly accomplished teams who have created successful pedestrian structures from all over the world," Ms. Schroeder said.

After the exhibition, the seven-member jury, which includes Mr. Krieger, will select three to five finalists; each will be awarded $1,000. They will be notified on Feb. 20.

A different committee will winnow the 23 invited firms, who were asked to submit similar work rather than a concept for the West End Bridge, to an equal number of finalists.

In Stage II of the competition, all of the finalists will receive $15,000 stipends to visit Pittsburgh and further develop their ideas over a 30-day period. At the end of Stage II, the open competition jury will reconvene and identify the competition's winners, who will be announced in May. Cash prizes of $7,500, $5,000 and $2,500 will be awarded to first-, second- and third-place winners.

There is not yet a budget or timeline for completion of the pedestrian bridge.

"The project itself will define the strategy for funding, which we assume will include both public and private funds, as well as the schedule for engineering design and construction," Ms. Schroeder said. "We would like to have the entire shoreline of Three Rivers Park fully developed by 2020."

Competition entries are on view 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. tomorrow through Thursday at Alcoa Corporate Center, 201 Isabella St., North Shore.