As of 10am tomorrow (Friday, April 25th), the Lowry bridge will be closed for good. No longer will you be able to zoom across its rickety, see-through steel deck. Plans for a new, futuristic-looking bridge that will be totally out of place given the surroundings are in need of funding (don't you dare raise veinsplasher's taxes or he'll pitch a fit), but construction is supposed to begin in late 2009 and finish sometime around late 2011. That means if you use that bridge regularly you're going to have an irritating detour to deal with for the next, ohhh...three and a half years.

Share your fondest memories of the bridge. We shall miss it.

my singer lives right next to it. so we'll be able to watch construction while we drink beers on the waterway.

it was only open this time for like 9 months anyways.

You think THAT is bad? Our MAIN FUCKING BRIDGE in StC here has been closed for at least a month, and will be closed until, supposedly, next fall. It's the same design at the 35W bridge, with the gusset plates showing stress fractures, and so now we get a whole new one.

This has been very annoying, even though I'd rather not fall into the Mississippi when the bridge collapses, either.

There are also plans to redo the University bridge by 2011, by widening it and whatnot, which will also be a PITA since I use that bridge to get to hwy 10 OR the east side from my house.

So fuck your puny Lowry bridge. Having the DeSoto bridge out is kinda like having 35W down. Sure, there are alternate routes, but our main flow of traffic is cut off.

It goes beyond main arteries. This is about an odd piece of history. Yes, I'm sure having your bridge out sucks. But I've always had a soft spot in my heart for this strange little bridge. It's sort of like if Spoonbridge And Cherry suddenly went up in flames, except no one would really miss that stupid fucking thing. Yet people would pass by the hole and think, "Wow, I remember staring at that stupid fucking thing many times and thinking, 'why the fuck is this stupid thing even here?'"

This wasn't just a main bridge people were dependent upon. It was a rickety old novelty structure from the past that always freaked people the fuck out. And now it's gone.

it sure was fun to drive across really fast-like in the winter.

You can raise my taxes right after you promise we stop providing tax dollars to North Dakota.

I don't mind ND so much, but the fact that we are giving money for police training to freaking TURKEY when the overnight coverage for the entire Northeast is 3 cruisers kinda pisses me off.

I always loved the sound it made to drive over that bridge. Industrial and foreboding.

Damn, I love that bridge, even though I hate driving over it.

I'll always remember the time me and Danny went out there one night, and Danny was drinking a bit too much, well, I was probably drinking a bit too much, too, but I had better balance, and well ... No, wait, that's a bridge here in Wichita. Oh well. Still, great times. Deep riverbeds.

I want to ride my bike across it, but alas...

Apparently it got caught up in the bridge inspection fever and had a central concrete support that had shifted more than 12 inches and was expected to move more this summer.

As much as there is a lot of paranoia about bridges collapsing around the state because [insert partisan reason here], this one does seem like it was ready to party.

Oh that's right. You guys had the huge bridge collapse earlier in the year right?

Blah blah history. Our bridge has history, too! Of me being able to drive over it!

Actually, back when I lived at home, on Hwy 25, before it joins with Hwy 12, there was this awesome bridge, old style steel girders to "cover"... Real old-style... And I was very sad when it got torn down. But guess what, it was unstructurally sound! It got replaced with the kind of bridge you see everywhere else, bland, boring, functional.

It's the way of the future.

i dunno, i liked the seemingly hand-made wooden bridge over mirror lake (nice, deep glacial gorge) in lake delton, WI.

now THERES some character.

I work about two blocks away from it, haven't driven over it in years.

I really hated riding my motorcycle over that thing, it decided where you were going.

Is anybody here NOT one or two blocks away from this freaking thing? This is starting to weird me out. I live two blocks from it. You people are all around me! Are you stalking me?

Me too.

and JP: yes. yes we are.

someone close to me told me that he resented paying taxes because they're used for road repair due to seasonal wear and tear. because he doesn't think he should be taxed on winter.

Huh. I drove over that bridge yesterday afternoon. Didn't realize they were taking it down!

As a resident of NE Minneapolis, I have to rely on SOME bridge or another to get across the river. Lowry was a convenient one for me. Now I'll have to resort to Broadway, or the downtown bridges at Hennepin or Central. :(

It always felt like you were fighting the bridge to keep your vehicle straight when you drove over it, but somehow you didn't care because the hum of the deckplates was so endearing.

The official detour will be 42nd.

I don't even know what bridge this is; the only steel-grid-deck bridge I can think of is the one crossing the Mississippi to LaCrosse,WI. It's cool that it never needs plowing, but it's kinda slippery ALL the time and does like to steer your car for ya.

my son calls it the wiggly jiggly bridge

That's what my wife calls my peepee!

The bridge is very industrial/Goth imo. Hate to see it go, mby our city planners can move it closer to the Riverside area?

NE will have less crime while they're building a new bridge.


Ian's dad use to throw fire crackers off of that bridge.

It's keeping me out!

Jerks.

We can form our own elite strikeforce team on this side of the river.

And it keeps collapsing over and over