New 7th Street Bridge

I know that this is my 200th blip. I tried to come up with something terrific. I went for a bike ride. Then I decided that I would settle for something great. I bought some shoes. I would settle for something. I saw these new bridge spans being built and decided to scrap the whole 200 image idea.

Remember the Minneapolis bridge collapse of a few years ago? The Fort Worth 7th Street Bridge that spans the Trinity River is nearly identical. Built the same time with the same technology and materials. The engineers that inspected our bridge after the other's collapse, said we were headed for the same fate. The bridge needed replacing.

One BIG problem facing the planners was downtown Fort Worth sits on the east approach to the bridge and the hot, new, hip 7th Street complex of apartments, restaurants and businesses sits on the west. To make matters worse, there are only two bridges to get from downtown to 7th Street. To cut the construction time, they decided to build the bridge parts before knocking down the old bridge. Here you see the nearly complete arches. In the spring, we will see how well the plan works out.