The bridge is 91 years old and has a railroad track underneath. We go over this bridge a gazillion times each day. You probably did not even notice you were on a bridge if you have been to our house. Because our neighborhood is on a peninsula, most cars head in and out this way.
For months (and perhaps years), our neighborhood association has been in talks with CSX (the railway owners of the bridge) and the City of Baltimore to come up with plans and funding and community support for the replacement project. The community support was probably the worst part. The reason is interesting. #1. We reside on a peninsula as I said above, many many cars use this main road as their way into and out of the neighborhood. #2. We have
two other exit routes from the peninsula now (It used to be one exit route up until 2 years ago), but both of those exit routes have train tracks crossing the streets there and at any given time a train is blocking the way. One horror story had a person waiting 45 minutes for the train to move only to be very late for work.
The city has offered some fixes for the community now. There is a full time police officer and ambulance now stationed on our side of the bridge. There are also opportunities to sign up for emails and text messages if a train is blocking the routes out. And the good news is that a pedestrian walkway will constantly be there for our walks up to the grocery store. These fixes are very important to this community because the bridge is estimated to take 12 months to build, with an huge incentive to the contractor if they can finish in 10 months. Let's hope it is the later.
Stay tuned throughout the process. I plan to take pictures monthly and post them.
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