Monday, September 25, 2006

The duct taped bridges of Multnoma County

I don't really know what to do with this item except to post it and let you do with it what you will:

Yesterday, after a bike trip from Washington Park to Sauvie Island and back through downtown Portland, I found that the pedestrian crossing of the Steel Bridge was closed for maintenance, so I ended up crossing the Morrison Bridge on the south side.

(Portland drivers know the Morrison Bridge well, because its driving surface is a buzzing, humming metal grating through which you can look down to the Willamette River some 69 feet below--sometimes an unnerving experience even for confident drivers. For cyclists, it's the somewhat narrow sidewalk or nothing--better to use the wide multi-use lanes on both sides of the Hawthorne Bridge a few blocks south.)

So anyway--I'm coming over the crest of the bridge, near the control tower, and glanced down to where the drawbridge opens, and saw that someone had put duct tape over the one-inch gap where three of the interlocking drawbridge teeth meshed on the roadway.

Duct tape.

I have to admit, I have trusted duct tape to solve a lot of problems in my day, but . . . why would someone risk getting run over on the bridge to tape down a few inches of a 90-foot span?

Just one of those strange stories that urban life hands you from time to time. As I said, do with it what you will.

1 comment:

Misty said...

Someone duct taped the bridge together? Oh my.

And too funny that we were at SI at the same time. :-)