Monday, March 11, 2013

Neglected bridge

this is the longfellow bridge, connecting boston and cambridge. its for cars, the subway, bikes, or you can walk.because of the shape of the 4 towers in the center, as you can see here, the bridge is also called the salt and pepper bridge. hmmm. well, would never have thought of that, but ever since i read it, i guess i can sort of see it... unfortunately you cannot climb those towers. there was a time you could walk around them, they sort of stick out of the bridge, but as long as we live here the entrance has been blocked by fences.
this year they will start some major repairs on the bridge. the subway will not run during several weekends and the lanes for other traffic will be significantly reduced as well. according to wikipedia, the bridge has been neglected for a long time. the bridge has been there since 1906, but some  major repairs were only done way back in 1959 and lesser ones in 2002. they expect to spend almost 270 million dollars for repair. had repair been done regularly, it would have been "only" 81 million.... 

5 comments:

biebkriebels said...

I read an article in a paper lately, that the bridges in the US are neglected and not checked at all. Some of them are rather famous as the Golden Gate or very old as yours. So keep your fingers crossed when passing one.

CaT said...

yes, i read that about boston last night. quite scary!!

Jack said...

I don't know how you managed to find this bridge empty. Whenever I was there, it was full of traffic. Taking the bridge out of service will tangle the already tangled traffic, but the repairs must be done.

Stefan Jansson said...

Never a good idea to neglect bridges. We have a few like that in Stockholm.

Tim said...

this is why I always cross the bridge at top-speed.