I heard you like bridges

Here’s four of them all next to each other in New Westminster, shot a few days ago from a pier on the Fraser River1Not on my ancient Phone 12!.

From front to back:

  1. SkyBridge. This is only used for our SkyTrain ALRT system and opened in 1990.
  2. Pattullo Bridge. 89 years old at the time of death, scary to drive across because of narrow lanes and no centre barrier. Closed permanently in February of this year. It’s now being dismantled.
  3. Rail bridge. For your traditional train needs. It swings!
  4. Bridge, which replaces the Pattullo. It opened in December 2025 but off-ramps and pedestrian access are still being finished, in part because the old bridge is in the way and they had to chop the ends off of it to allow construction of the new bridge to continue. Named by the local Musequem and Kwantlen bands, it means “a place where you can view the river.” (Apologies for the weird-looking name, which is presented as an image. My blog can’t interpret the special characters due to some old database shenanigans I’ve never figured out because I am neither a web developer nor a database expert. I don’t even touch type, for pete’s sake.)

The mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge

The piece linked below is a very long, exhaustive blog report on why a certain pedestrian bridge exists on I-494 in Minnesota. That might not sound like a subject worthy of a lengthy investigation, but author Tyler Vigen goes on a nerdy, obsessive hunt to figure out why a pedestrian bridge that doesn’t seem to really connect to anything came to be.

Stick around till the end. It’s not exactly a twist, but it is satisfying. This is why blogs are still such a great resource.

The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge