The Marquam Bridge, alas

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A while back, I set a challenge to myself to try to make the Marquam Bridge look interesting. Which is a real challenge, as in real life it's not very interesting at all. Nobody (myself included) ever has anything nice to say about it. It's a big, ugly, cheaply-built, 60's freeway bridge, and it's part of the freeway that hogs the east bank of the Willamette.

So I don't know whether I've succeeded here or not, but this is what I've got for the time being. Maybe next year I'll do the Bridge Pedal, the one time each year where you can walk or bike over the Marquam and the Fremont. That way I might get some cool photos from the bridge. That'd be cool. The one great thing about the Marquam is the view of downtown, which is pretty much unparalleled -- except maybe by the view from the Fremont. It's a shame that under normal circumstances you only catch fleeting glimpses of this view while dodging semis and weaving around geezers in Buicks.

If I did the Bridge Pedal thing, I could also get some nice photos of the Marquam's intricate architectural details, if it had any, which it doesn't.



Some years ago, I had a near-accident on the bridge. I was going eastbound onto the bridge, a bit too fast, when a very slow UPS truck pulled into my lane just ahead of me. I had to slam on the brakes, and I ended up spinning around, ending up on the shoulder (there's a shoulder on the ramp, but not on the bridge itself), facing the wrong way, into traffic. I'm still amazed I didn't hit anyone, or ram into the bridge railing, or flip over the railing entirely and plummet into the river. I didn't even scratch the paint on my car, amazingly. I had to wait a while for a gap in traffic so I could get turned back around and continue on my way. That wasn't fun at all, and I occasionally still think of that incident when I drive over the bridge. I shouldn't bear a grudge against the bridge itself over a thing like this, but I have to admit I sort of do.



I suppose I ought to go ahead and make a proper bridge post out of this, although for reasons I've just explained, I might be a bit more halfhearted about it than usual.

So... here are the Structurae and Bridgehunter pages for the bridge.

The city has an old photo of the bridge under construction

And on Flickr, a cool time lapse video of traffic at night.



The Zinester's Guide disses it a little.

Here's someone's vision to get rid of the Marquam and turn the remnant into a park.

Part of Ursula LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven takes place in an Alien-run antique shop located beneath a surviving remnant of the destroyed Marquam Bridge.



Other photos, from across the Information Superhighway:
[1] [2] [3] [4]