Waldo-Hancock Bridge Removal

[BrianP]

Follow the removal, which is in progress, here:
http://www.maine.gov/mdot/whbridgeremoval/index.htm

I really should post the photos I took last year. 

[SteveG1988]

Is it just me or do most northern bridges take half a decade or more to tear down?

the old jamestown bridge was up for nearly 15 years before it was torn down?

[BrianP]

Here are the photos of the bridge I took last year:
http://www.lostagain.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=13

[KEVIN_224]

Awesome pictures! I wish the Zakim Bridge in Boston had an observatory like that!

[Ian]

I visited the bridge as well last July (photos here if anyone's interested). The bridge observatory is really cool in person! While I do enjoy the new bridge, I'm going to miss the old bridge even more. It's a shame MaineDOT couldn't have found a way to preserve it some how.

[Duke87]

I was there in the summer of 2005 when the new bridge was still under construction... I did not yet own a camera so I have no pictures of either.

What's perhaps odd is that while Maine is not all that far away, I have thus far only been to the state once...

[vdeane]

Do they HAVE to take the old bridge down?  It has so much more character than the new one...

[BrianP]

Do they HAVE to take the old bridge down?  It has so much more character than the new one...

Just a guess but it sounds like the cables are in such bad shape that the bridge might collapse under its own weight some day.  And you can't have that over an active waterway. 

[Duke87]

Do they HAVE to take the old bridge down?  It has so much more character than the new one...

Just a guess but it sounds like the cables are in such bad shape that the bridge might collapse under its own weight some day.  And you can't have that over an active waterway.

Or right next to a new bridge that might be damaged by it if it falls.

[BrianP]

I happened to check today and see that new photos have been posted today.  The concrete roadbed was removed.  And much of the road deck has also been removed.  How sad.

[BrianP]

Just noting that with today's web site update the bridge is gone.  No steel remains.  There's just the concrete piers where the towers stood which will soon be all that remains.

[Pete from Boston]

Wow, after so many years of delay (7?) that is stunningly fast.  It was indeed a beautiful bridge with incredible character.  It was a white elephant, though -- if they'd been able to maintain it, there wouldn't be a new bridge.

Glad I got to see it, but sad I never looked at it from the observatory.