These two expressway bridges are very typical bridges from the 1990s. They are built to be low cost yet be totally functional and have a long life. At the same time, there has been zero effort put into these bridges to add any decorative elements, or to give the bridges any of the stature of the river that it is crossing. That sums up the entire US-53 4-lane highway project in northern Wisconsin. It was built to be inexpensive yet functional, and since it does not have the traffic to warrant spending large sums of money, the highway has to be inexpensive to maintain.
The small town of Gordon is an interesting spot given that it has 5 bridges that cross the Saint Croix River in close proximity. These two US-53 bridges are on the west end of town. Moving to the east, we find the old US-53 bridge on Gate Road, the old railroad bridge (now used as a regional trail), and finally the hefty Wisconsin Central railroad bridge.
Note the interesting numbers for the traffic counts above. The southbound bridge is reported as having almost 1,000 more vehicles a day cross that span. I know of no reason that the traffic numbers should differ so widely. Perhaps this is a data error.
The photo above is a view of the deck of the southbound span as seen from the southwest corner of the structure. The northbound bridge is located to the right of this span. The tops of the railings of the northbound bridge are visible in the background.
