Scariest bridge you've ever driven across

[Alps]

Queensboro's bad? Try Williamsburg.

[bugo]

I believe someone mentioned the Queensboro Bridge outer roadway.

Well, I filmed it.

It is indeed "fun".

Holy crap. Never in a million years would I want to drive on that.

The outer lanes on the McKinley bridge in St Louis used to have outer lanes on it.  They were terrifying.

[Revive 755]

The US 52 bridge over the main channel of the Mississippi because it's narrow and the steel grid deck feels like it's trying to throw one into oncoming traffic.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=42.104304,-90.162392&spn=0.026905,0.066047&t=m&z=15&vpsrc=6&layer=c&cbll=42.104304,-90.16194&panoid=4r93YhUA438zHJlUyElu9w&cbp=12,85.09,,0,-0.58

[SteveG1988]

Another one i drove on, it was scary due to the flooding, the Demers Ave bridge Aka sorlie memorial bridge in grand forks ND. drove over it with the flood water almost touching the underside.

[Darkchylde]

New scariest bridge - the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. It's not that high, but the length and lack of shoulders scare the hell out of me - especially if the car starts acting up midway across.

Seriously, the last thing you want to hear is something going wrong with the engine when you're at the 12-mile marker.

[pctech]

While not as scary as the Huey P. NOLA or I-10 Lake Charles, the I-10 Baton Rouge is pretty dangerous as well. It's way over capacity, has no shoulders and poorly designed interchanges on both ends. The traffic is usually pretty heavy, you are just one distracted driver, me suddenly stopping traffic, etc from an accident.

Mark

[texaskdog]

New scariest bridge - the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. It's not that high, but the length and lack of shoulders scare the hell out of me - especially if the car starts acting up midway across.

Seriously, the last thing you want to hear is something going wrong with the engine when you're at the 12-mile marker.

Gotta be scarier for the plethora of cops that speed trap at every single crossing, and have to enter traffic from the side

[sr641]

In St. Paul, Indiana there is a scary bridge.

[vdeane]

Ogdensburg-Prescott International Bridge; my car felt like it was being blown by wind the entire drive across.

[OCGuy81]

There are three that come to mind.

- Sellwood Bridge (Portland, OR)
- Bridge of the Gods (Cascade Locks, OR/Stevenson, WA).  When you get the winds really blowing in the Columbia River Gorge, this isn't that much fun.
- Pretty much any bridge on the infamous "Road to Hana" on the island of Maui, HI.  And after several of these death traps, you get to Hana and think "Really? That's it?!"

[D-Dey65]

Queensboro's bad? Try Williamsburg.

I've found that scary since 1982. When I looked back on the history, and realized that the problems of that bridge could've been avoided by replacing it in conjunction with the LOMEX and Bushwick Expressway, I got more pissed-off about the anti-highway legislation of the 1960's and 1970's.

[Compulov]

I would like to add the following spans,

Calhoun Street Bridge, Trenton NJ

3 Ton Weight Limit, 15 MPH speed limit
Opened Oct 24 1884, 126 years old in a few days.


Recently re-opened after a 6 month closure to replace the steel grid deck.

And the awesome, but scary for drivers who are not used to driving a stick shift car,

I used to think this until I went over the Washington Crossing Bridge, which is even narrower. I thought for sure I'd lose a mirror on that bridge.

The Burlington Bristol Bridge, Burlington NJ.
Opened 1931, 12 foot wide lanes, two lanes total. Steep approach on the NJ side.

I live in Bristol and take this at least once a week (usually because gas is way cheaper on the NJ side of the bridge). I'm not bothered by the height or steep approach. What bothers me about it are two things. The first is the somewhat "flimsy" looking railing along the side of the bridge which don't look like they'd contain a car if it were to crash into them. The second is this minor irrational fear I have with movable bridges... that the operator won't be paying attention and open the bridge while I'm on it... especially in the morning when the RiverLine which crosses NJ-413 backs traffic up onto the bridge.

[Road Hog]

This one is pretty messed up;

[DandyDan]

The US 52 bridge over the main channel of the Mississippi because it's narrow and the steel grid deck feels like it's trying to throw one into oncoming traffic.

I can second that one, especially if you're driving east, where you have to make an immediate stop.  The Burt County toll bridge in Decatur, Nebraska is built the same way.  There is one over the Kansas River west of Topeka (can't remember what town it's close to, but it's on the road south out of town and it connects to I-70) which seems even scarier because it's narrow and it looks like they filled in the steel grid with cement in a haphazard way.

For totally rural bridges, there used to be one near my uncle's farm near Adrian Minnesota on a formerly minimum maintenance road over the Kanaranzi Creek that used to make noise if you ever drove over it.  I think they eventually replaced it because there was a farmer who owned property on both sides of the creek who complained about it.

There is also the old Rock Island Swing Bridge between St. Paul Park and Inver Grove Heights in Minnesota.  That one always scared me as a kid because it was so old (and we always were on it because that was the way to work for dad).   I always worried I was going to be stuck on the swing span when it opened.

Another one that was scary is the Meridian Highway Bridge in Yankton, SD, if you went north, because you had a long ramp up and a long ramp down.

Purely in retrospect, I'd have to also add the old I-35W bridge in Minneapolis.

[texaskdog]

The old Oliver Bridge south of Superior, Wisconsin.  You could hear the wooden deck rumble as you drove it, and worse if a train was on the upper deck.

[Jordanah1]

all tall bridges when i was young(3-6 years old) were what i thought to be the scariest things in the world, the scariest was the mackinaw bridge. (i was only 5 years old at the time)

[PurdueBill]

I say the most scariest is the All American Bridge in Akron because that bridge is known as the city's suicide bridge. The reason for this is when I drive on the bridge (which is not very often) I'm always worry about someone jumping off of that bridge.

The $9 million project to add new, high fences that ruin the nice view from the bridge (and while they were at it, they did some other work on the bridge but they wouldn't have done that if it weren't for stimulus money and adding the fences) was finally completed in the winter after 2 years of closings, detours, delays, and so on.  A couple weeks ago another person scaled the new fence and jumped to his death.  Sadly, I don't think anything will ever stop people who are determined to kill themselves from jumping there if that is what they really want to do.

For whatever irrational reason, I never liked the I-95 bridge over the Susquehanna River in Maryland.  Always seemed dangerous somehow.  I never drove in the outermost lane of it due to my paranoia!

[NJRoadfan]

The scariest bridge for me growing up was the old wooden decked Beach Creek Bridge going into North Wildwood on whats now NJ-147. We went over it twice in its final days as NJDOT had a new bridge deck on site, I think it was around 1993-94 or so. Today it has been all bypassed by a modern 4 lane divided highway.



Someone even posted a video crossing it back in 1987!: http://www.darkinthepark.com/Wildwood/wildwood2.htm

Another bridge that makes one nervous in the same area is the Middle Thoroughfare Bridge that connects Wildwood Crest and Cape May. Its narrow and has a toll booth on top of it! Its last bridge inspection had it rated at something like 3 out of 100! Besides getting stuck on it waiting to pay a toll, sometimes the drawbridge has trouble closing, so you get stuck on it waiting. Oh, and a boat or two has struck the bridge.

[kphoger]

My scariest bridge was one I didn't drive across, but...

When I was a kid, I lived right next to the railroad tracks in New Lenox, Illinois.  In those days (before MetRa started using them), there were only about two trains a day along that line, so the tracks were my playground.  One day, my friend and I decided to walk out over a trestle, where one line goes over another line (here: http://goo.gl/maps/wGlk).  There was nothing in between the planks, you know, just gaps to fall through.  No big deal, though, right?  Well, right when we were at the midpoint, a train came down the tracks beneath us; just before it got to us, it blew its horn.  HOLY CRAP!  I literally jumped back at least one or two planks–fortunately landing on another plank and not a gap.

[allniter89]

My scariest bridge was one I didn't drive across, but...

When I was a kid, I lived right next to the railroad tracks in New Lenox, Illinois.  In those days (before MetRa started using them), there were only about two trains a day along that line, so the tracks were my playground.  One day, my friend and I decided to walk out over a trestle, where one line goes over another line (here: http://goo.gl/maps/wGlk).  There was nothing in between the planks, you know, just gaps to fall through.  No big deal, though, right?  Well, right when we were at the midpoint, a train came down the tracks beneath us; just before it got to us, it blew its horn.  HOLY CRAP!  I literally jumped back at least one or two planks–fortunately landing on another plank and not a gap.

oh man that is too funny! 

[Jordanah1]

My scariest bridge was one I didn't drive across, but...

When I was a kid, I lived right next to the railroad tracks in New Lenox, Illinois.  In those days (before MetRa started using them), there were only about two trains a day along that line, so the tracks were my playground.  One day, my friend and I decided to walk out over a trestle, where one line goes over another line (here: http://goo.gl/maps/wGlk).  There was nothing in between the planks, you know, just gaps to fall through.  No big deal, though, right?  Well, right when we were at the midpoint, a train came down the tracks beneath us; just before it got to us, it blew its horn.  HOLY CRAP!  I literally jumped back at least one or two planks—fortunately landing on another plank and not a gap.

oh man that is too funny! 

i bet you learned your lesson!!!

[DBrim]

I've never crossed a bridge that has given me an immediate "get me off of this thing" feeling.  The Tobin bridge can be interesting during Noreasters, though.  Might be worse this year if they don't finish construction on time, since the lanes are narrower than usual.

I crossed the bridge to Ile D'Orleans this weekend, and while I didn't have any issues on it when I went over it, I bet that thing is fun during the winter.  Undivided, with just one 10 foot lane in each direction.  Combine that with some snow and some ice and I bet that it's terrifying.

[Some_Person]

One bridge that scared me, in a way, at first was the Alfred E. Driscoll Bridge, in New Jersey:

What scared me was how wide it was, and how many cars were on it, because I was surprised at how it could support so many. The southbound span(all the way to the left in the picture) has 7 lanes all on the same roadway, and the width combined with how high up it feels makes it a good adrenaline rush.

Another bridge I've been scared on is the Delaware Memorial Bridge, not because of the bridge itself, but because, this one time, a tractor trailer overturned about a mile after the bridge, and had traffic bumper to bumper along the entire southbound span. Having so many cars just stopped on a 60 year old bridge while it takes nearly an hour to make it across is kinda scary.

Neither of these are as 'scary' as others mentioned, but in their own way these two were kinda scary for me.

[kphoger]

I understand.  Bridges are less scary the faster across them you move–especially if you close to the rail.

[NJRoadfan]

One bridge that scared me, in a way, at first was the Alfred E. Driscoll Bridge, in New Jersey:

What scared me was how wide it was, and how many cars were on it, because I was surprised at how it could support so many. The southbound span(all the way to the left in the picture) has 7 lanes all on the same roadway, and the width combined with how high up it feels makes it a good adrenaline rush.

If it makes you feel better, its even wider now (then that picture). Widest bridge in the world by number of lanes to be exact. Southbound is 7 lanes, and norhtbound is 8 lanes in a 4+4 configuration.