Sunday, March 4, 2012

Four bridges, different colors

There is a good variety of bridges over the Ohio River: steel truss, suspension, cable stay, suspended arch and network tied arch come to mind. There are railroad bridges, highway bridges and pedestrian bridge(s).

When Adam and I went to Steubenville, Ohio, a couple of weeks ago we talked about the different colors of bridges, too. They would make a Crayola executive proud. Here are four:

First, the Hi Carpenter Bridge at St. Marys, W.Va., has this color that I can't describe except maybe "salmon."



I've not seen it at night, but from a photo I've seen, it look pretty good lit up.

At New Martinsville, W.Va., there's this bridge. It looks like someone started painting it from the bottom up and then gave up.



I know people in West Virginia love their blue and gold, but ...



I had seen pictures of the Market Street Bridge, and it didn't look all that great. The color scheme bothered me more the first time I saw it. Maybe if I saw it every day I could get used to it, but still....



Finally, there's this old bridge, the Bellaire Toll Bridge, which has been closed to traffic for more than 20  years and whose owner says will come down this year.



The thing has been scheduled for demolition more times than Leonhard Euler could count.

Okay, one more ...



Traffic along WV Route 2 was not good, and there was no good place to pull off that I could see. This bridge cried out "gothic" to me. The river above Wheeling has a lot of interesting bridges. If I get back up that way, I'll do my best to get the rest of them.