Being a road geek, I recently noticed three trends that are of concern
to me. The first is that while we are fortunate to have a number of modern
high-speed freeway river crossings, the older bridges that have been
replaced are quickly being destroyed and wiped from history. Second,
the misplaced paranoia about terrorism has many places attempting to
make public photography illegal. Finally, as I have once again started
riding a motorcycle, and my learner's permit does not allow me to use
freeways, I find that I cannot use the vast majority of river crossings
to ride to work since nearly all are classed as freeways. There are
no leisurely river crossings where you can still do some sight-seeing
without getting run over by a flock of giant SUVs or speed-crazed
rice burners.
The result is this collection of Minneapolis and Saint Paul metro area
bridge and other river structure photos. To qualify, a bridge or dam
has to span the main channel of the Mississippi River, Minnesota River,
or Saint Croix River, all of which come together in the 7 county metro
area. In addition, many historic and non-channel bridges are also
presented. It is an exciting time given all the new bridges that have
gone up in the past decade, but at the same time, it is sad how many of
the old ones were lost in the process.
As it turns out, January 23, 2005 is the 150th anniversary of the
opening of the first Mississippi River bridge in the area at
Hennepin Avenue. Follow this link
for the excellent Minneapolis Riverfront District celebration of the
bridges.
These pages are largely finished. They will, however, be growing and
improving over time. I have some photography to complete, and I am still
doing research on some of the bridges. This is my first experiment using
a digital camera.
While the digital camera is handy, I am finding that I am not able to
get the results that I routinely get with my Minolta Maxxum SLR cameras.
I have also been surprised at how hard it is to photograph a bridge.
Most of them are in areas where it is hard to get side and under shots,
many do not have pedestrian walkways, and they are so big that you have
to get far back, which leads to having obstructions in the way. Finding
good photo locations is the big trick. As a result, I am reshooting much
of the photography over time with a new Minolta Maxxum digital SLR.
