Bridges @ Iowa and Illinois, A Photo a Week

Living on one side of the river and working on the others can cause a transportation problem if we did have bridges. There are some places around the world that have ferry boats that take people and sometimes cars from one side of the river to the other.

Where I live on the Mississippi we have numerous bridges, some for cars and some for trains. Most have identifying names so in conversation you can tell what side of the quad cities you are referring to. There are 4 cities linked together, 2 cities on each side of the river that the only way you can tell what city you are in is by the street name. For instance if you were on 49th street and all of a sudden you were on 1st street, you went from Davenport to Bettendorf in Iowa or from Rock Island to Moline in Illinois. On the far west side of town you have the first bridge, the Blue Bridge(that used to be the yellow bridge) which is actually the 280 bypass. The next bridge east is a railroad bridge and coming further east you have the newer bridge, the Centennial Bridge, which connects the downtown areas of Davenport and Rock Island. This is the bridge where all the 4th of July festivities are surrounded. A barge is put in the middle of the river and is where they shoot off fireworks. The next bridge over is the Arsenal Bridge and Lock Dam that goes from Davenport’s east side the the Rock Island Base. Coming further east is the I-74 Corridor bridge which is in the process of its 3rd and massive rebuild.   The the last bridge for the area is the I-80 bridge which will probably be the next rebuild project one the I-74 bridge is complete in 2020.

In following Nancy Merrill’s prompt of Bridges I am featuring the center most bridges of the area. There is also a smaller river in this area, the Rock river that flows into the Mississippi that has several bridges as well but they are not as photographic as these. So enjoy. I do apologize for the gray day but its that kind of day.

These two pictures below show construction barges and cranes. In October you could main frames for the structure footings and some of the first sections of the bridge are complete. I will send update maybe in the spring.

The area I live in is really not that big in comparison of the larger metro cities but is big enough to need several bridges to carry people from side to the other.

In closing today I close with a wonderful smile as a reminder to always be kind. your kindness may be the only nice thing that person may get on a given day.