How long does a bridge live?

 

[From: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Shahrestan_bridge.JPG/1280px-Shahrestan_bridge.JPG ]



Third to Seventh Century, Common Era. Built.
Shahrestan, on the Zayandeh River in Isfahan.
Stan- that part is familiar. Is it not? Stan is state.
Kazakhstan. Uzbekistan. Turkmenistan. Kyrgyzstan. Tajikistan.Afghanistan. Pakistan. Portstan.
Shahr- means city.
City State Bridge.
In Persian.
Renovated again in the tenth and eleventh century in the Common Era.
Which still exists today!

And there is the Thurman Street Bridge.
Officially, the Balch Gulch Bridge.
Built in 1905.
It carried streetcar tracks for decades.
The wooden sidewalk for walkers lost its iron-friend.
The War on Trams was won.
Cars. Cars. Cars.
The lonely bus 15 in lieu of the rambling streetcars.

In summer, I saw your naked skeleton.
Looking fragile. Like a grandparent.
I wondered if you would be melted in a scrap yard.
I did not believe them when they said they would keep you and replace the top.
Strengthen you.
Put on a new surface.
Like people did in Isfahan.
But I was wrong.
I pray that you live for a hundred more years.
What about a thousand?

"Built in 1905.
Rehabilitated 2014.
City of Portland."
- says the plaque.

So this is a city-state bridge. On the Balch Creek which flows to the Willamette
And then we have the county-state bridges. On the Willamette which flows to the Columbia.
And then we have the interstate bridge. On the Columbia which flows to the Ocean.

They "rehabilitated" the City-State Bridge.
What about the others?
Do we demolish and build anew?

Or we do we add a stanza to the mantra.
Reduce.
Reuse.
Rehabilitate.
Recycle.






Balch Gulch Bridge.
Back in Operation in Nov 2014.
For people and buses and cars.
Sans streetcars.

Look Carefully.
At the pedestrian path on either side of the bridge.
The anti-skid grooves.
Not of wood. Not Slippery.
Of Metal.
With holes to let the water drain.
All designed on a computer.
For people to walk on.