Scariest bridge you've ever driven across

[kphoger]

On Saturday, my wife and I took a short trip to Arkansas for our 11th anniversary.  On the way there, we took a scenic route, and that included AR-187 across the Little Golden Gate Bridge in the town of Beaver.  My wife has a fear of bridges over water, so I made sure not to tell her about this bridge until we were almost upon it.  She was brave:  even though the sound of the boards clunking underneath our car unnerved her, she was the one who took the pictures.  The bridge is one lane with wooden decking.  And yes, it's part of a state highway.

With the recent flooding in the area, Beaver Bridge looks a little different now...

[Tonytone]

The Cowingo Dam-Bridge? Its Also a state highway, Its pretty narrow on the bridge and trucks love taking this way. The view is nice tho 

[sparker]

On Saturday, my wife and I took a short trip to Arkansas for our 11th anniversary.  On the way there, we took a scenic route, and that included AR-187 across the Little Golden Gate Bridge in the town of Beaver.  My wife has a fear of bridges over water, so I made sure not to tell her about this bridge until we were almost upon it.  She was brave:  even though the sound of the boards clunking underneath our car unnerved her, she was the one who took the pictures.  The bridge is one lane with wooden decking.  And yes, it's part of a state highway.

With the recent flooding in the area, Beaver Bridge looks a little different now...

Yikes!!!  From the "drier days" pictures, it's likely that the approach road(s) were inundated as well.  Sympathies to anyone living or traveling in that valley.  Similar incidents have occurred in our general area in the past few months, particularly up on the Russian River near Guerneville and Rio Nido (bridges overrun, approaches washed out, etc.). 

[Roadgeekteen]

Tappen zee bridge, but I have not really been on many bridges.

[ClevePVU]

The FM1960 bridge over Lake Houston back when it was two lanes with no shoulders or guardrails...scary as hell when you're 6.

[ColossalBlocks]

Ye old Cape Girardeau truss bridge.

[rte66man]

Either of the bridges at Cairo, IL.

[cl94]

A candidate here, while not nearly as scary as most, is the Northumberland Bridge carrying US 4 over the Hudson River between Northumberland and Greenwich, NY. 100 year-old steel deck bridge that is roughly 18 feet wide. It is NOT fun encountering a truck on that thing and 2 trucks cannot safely pass. Due to its length and difficulty in seeing one approach from the other, it should probably have signals restricting it to one-way traffic.

[JJBers]

Portsmouth Bridge, in between Maine and New Hampshire....hey, I was 6 at the time.

[Sctvhound]

The two lane SC 41 bridge over the Wando River used to be one of the scariest bridges in the Charleston area. It just got replaced by a high bridge, as it opened this Friday. It was a bridge that opened up, and the lanes were very narrow.

[Throckmorton]

   
There are scarier bridges, I'm sure, and I've probably crossed some of them. But the Astoria-Megler bridge always freaks me out.   
   
   

[Roadgeekteen]

My Mom is scared of all big bridges.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Mackinac Bridge: It was much more unnerving to me crossing it as the driver than when I did as the passenger.

Chesapeake Bay Bridge: Part of this admittedly was that I would be driving over it in the dark when I was exhausted after a miserable travel day from MSP to BWI.

[jakeroot]

There are scarier bridges, I'm sure, and I've probably crossed some of them. But the Astoria-Megler bridge always freaks me out.

I've driven over it more than a few times, but it's never crossed my mind as being scary. Long, but not scary.

The scary part for me was having to deal with Oregon drivers once I crossed over it.

[theline]

Mackinac Bridge: It was much more unnerving to me crossing it as the driver than when I did as the passenger.

Agreed. I think the difference with this bridge is that it seems to be so much higher than others because of the extremely flat terrain and lack of buildings around it.

[bugo]

That's pretty cool, apparently it is the only suspension bridge open in Arkansas.  Weird thing is that there is an article on Wikipedia about the Beaver Bridge but not Arkansas 187...  At least that's not all that high above the water table.

There is a suspension bridge near Allison in Stone County over Sylamore Creek. It formerly carried AR 14. I visited it in 1996 and drove across it. It is apparently still open to traffic.

http://bridgehunter.com/ar/stone/sylamore/

There is also a suspension bridge in Boone County that was originally an auto bridge but is now only open to pedestrians. It is very narrow.

http://bridgehunter.com/ar/boone/haggards-ford/

The construction of Greers Ferry Lake wiped out several suspension bridges. There was another suspension bridge nearby that survived the dam's construction but collapsed in 1985 when some dumbasses in a church group swang the bridge back and forth, causing it to fail.

http://bridgehunter.com/ar/cleburne/winkley/

[triplemultiplex]

swang the bridge back and forth

Perfect word for such an occurrence. 

[D-Dey65]

Tappen zee bridge, but I have not really been on many bridges.

When I traveled the Metro-North Hudson Line last week, I saw they were tearing that bridge down.

[Skye]

I don't know about scary, but I feel uncomfortable on the lower deck (northbound) Brent Spence Bridge (I-71/I-75 KY to OH).  The lanes are narrow, there's a lot of traffic and a lot of cars changing lanes.  I typically avoid changing lanes and only drive about 45-50 mph on the bridge.

[Hurricane Rex]

There were no scary driving bridges. Walking bridges, a few in my hikes were badly eroded.

[ColossalBlocks]

The US 45 Brookport bridge... At least for my better half. 

[kphoger]

Walking bridges

Early in my parents' marriage (a few years before I was born), they lived across I-64 from Barnes—Jewish Hospital in Saint Louis.  My mom was a nurse at the hospital, and she was walking across this pedestrian overpass on her way home one night when a man attacked her.  She beat him off with her purse.  Go mom!

[kphoger]

The US 45 Brookport bridge... At least for my better half. 

Same here.  My young wife was not amused when I took her across that bridge on our way to Paducah to rent a moving truck.  She was even less amused on our way back when she found out there was another, perfectly fine, less scary way across the Ohio–I-24.

[kkt]

If we're doing walking bridges, a disused railroad trestle across a canyon at Stampede Pass, Washington.  Out of use for probably 10 years at that point, I think it's been reactivated and rebuilt since.  Probably 100 feet high and 1 mile long.    No solid decking, just beams about 1 1/2 feet apart except where they were missing.  Track had been removed.  Solo, no other people within sight or hearing.  Generally a stupid thing to do; don't try this at home.  But it didn't fall down, and I didn't trip and fall; thanks to the good work of legions of anonymous Chinese 19th century laborers.

[kphoger]

If we're doing walking bridges, a disused railroad trestle across a canyon at Stampede Pass, Washington.  Out of use for probably 10 years at that point, I think it's been reactivated and rebuilt since.  Probably 100 feet high and 1 mile long.    No solid decking, just beams about 1 1/2 feet apart except where they were missing.  Track had been removed.  Solo, no other people within sight or hearing.  Generally a stupid thing to do; don't try this at home.  But it didn't fall down, and I didn't trip and fall; thanks to the good work of legions of anonymous Chinese 19th century laborers.

Until I was eight years old, I lived at a dead end right by a railroad in New Lenox, IL.  Nowadays that track is used by Metra SouthWest Service but, back then in the late 1980s, it was only used by a couple of freight trains a day, and one of those was at night.  My friends and I grew up playing along those tracks.  One day, we decided to walk along the track farther than we ever had before, and we decided to cross this trestle over the Rock Island line.  There was no solid decking, just railroad ties with empty space between them.  When we were halfway across, a train down below on the Rock Island line blew its whistle.  HOLY CRAP!!!  I thought it was a train directly behind us.  I literally jumped back several feet, fortunately landing on another railroad tie and not the space between.