This homage posted to YouTube by Keith Ballentine is strangely brilliant. Our streets and bridges have an emotional hold on us – generally taken for granted, but also often bookmarking significant events in our lives. Memories can attach to a trip over a bridge, a winding country road, a first skyline view from a highway. This happens more when a structure is somehow unique.
Anyway, the Kingshighway viaduct is being remembered today, for good and bad, as it closes for a period of two years for replacement. It was crumbling and years past its designed lifespan, but the $21M replacement is unlikely to be so noted at its replacement in half a century.
The replacement structure will be wider, with protected sidewalks and six traffic lanes. Only a few images made available of the Kingshighway viaduct project (we think the design could have been improved):
The newer Kingshighway viaduct just to the north of the one being replaced:
The Kingshighway skatepark:
