I’m a bridge, but people take me for granted. Rarely does the motorist consider the architecture of my strength.
For years I have enjoyed a stint on a favorite path between two places, Sagg and the Harbor. I am a bucolic folly made of wood, with a 5-ton limit. For all the people who can’t do math out there — and, in my experience, that is a lot of you — 5 tons is 10,000 pounds.
A cement mixer? I had two of those just this morning — they weigh about 30 tons each. I actually passed out before the third one came over, so there may have been four. I guess they are building a lot of houses on one of the roads I lead to.
It’s been super intense, and I know I am overburdened. So I get depressed, and I can’t do anything about it, because I’m literally a trestle. Every day I ask myself, “What if I fail?” I am preoccupied and anxious.
Anyway, I’m old, I need repairs. I admit I am nostalgic for the days when I was too steep and this place was considered rural. I took out many oil pans. Even careful housewives occasionally got air off me.
Honestly, my favorites were the kids who went too fast. I enjoyed them because I taught them. Either they got to be better drivers, or they never did anything like that, ever again. I promise, it was the latter, and not the former, that prevailed.
I’ve ruined bumpers and mufflers, I’ve torn off doors and demolished side panels. But I’ve never killed anybody. That’s more than some of my fancy relations can say. South of the highway, also a 5-ton bridge, one of her concrete pillars took some speeding motorist’s head clean off. She’s been widened and restored, but she claims she can still feel “it.”
Just when I am at the near depths of despair, thinking there will be no alternative (I am a tragedy waiting to happen), there is a glimmer of hope.
Technically, I belong to the railroad company. You guys, you taxpayers, own the tar that the municipal employees patch me with, but, ultimately, I belong to people who don’t live here, and they have much bigger problems than me. So, by some magic fluke of bureaucracy, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has agreed to take over the stewardship of “this crucial thoroughfare.” That’s me they are talking about — “a crucial thoroughfare.” Finally!
Of course, I was flattered. But that’s over now, as is the six-month study. And what I thought was going to be better signage and basic protection, like maybe a height restricter, is now a plan to completely re-imagine what I am. They say I could generate millions if they replace me with steel and install digital eyes. They are going to turn me into something called EZ Pass.
EZ Pass? Are you joking! Is this how I get thanked for the millions, and billions, and trillions, of pounds I have borne safely across? I used to be a free bridge, a lovely bridge, a bridge that was both gentle and surprising. I was one of the few places you ungrateful citizens could safely pause to feel what is like to have a train race beneath you.
No one gets a pass, especially you!
(Happy April Fools' Day!)
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