Broadway Avenue Bridge
CSAH-66 Mississippi River Crossing
Minneapolis, MN

CSAH-66 Bridge

• Structure ID: NBI: 27608.
• Location: River Mile 855.40.
• River Elevation: 801 Feet.
• Highway: CSAH-66.
• Daily Traffic Count: 21,300 (2001).
• Bridge Type: Steel Girder.
• Length: 857 Feet, 186 Foot Main Span.
• Width: 4 Traffic Lanes.
• Navigation Channel Width: 186 Feet.
• Height Above Water: 22 Feet.
• Date Built: Opened July 1987.
Claim to fame: bridge is exactly at 45 degrees of latitude, exactly halfway between the equator and north pole.

The Broadway Ave Bridge is about as plain and simple as a bridge structure can be. It appears that no money was spent on any type of ornamentation. Normally, such a modern freeway style bridge would be rather bland. But in this case, the thin lines of the bridge combined with the broad river channel gives the bridge an appearance of elegant simplicity.

When the original 1887 bridge was torn down, one of the through-truss sections was saved, floated down-river, and installed as the traffic bridge from Main Street to Nicollet Island. It is now called the Merriam Street Bridge.


CSAH-66 Bridge

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Photo and text by John A. Weeks III, Copyright © 2005, all rights reserved.
For further information, contact: john@johnweeks.com