Looking to the future

Now that things are relatively quiet in my daily life, I’ve gotten to thinking about certain future events. One of these is of course my roller coaster trip that will take place in about six weeks. This will be my first foray to an amusement park this year and will encompass both Kings Dominion and Busch Gardens in Williamsburg. Then I plan on going to Cedar Point in the early summer. All of those parks have new coasters which will boost my all time ride count to almost three hundred different coasters in my lifetime. I am not totally sure of my count as I’ve not updated it in years, but I plan to do that soon.

But I am also thinking of events much further in the future, those of which have only tentative dates. Yesterday I saw in my news feed an article about a very old bridge in Pennsylvania that had been recently renovated. The work was completed in February but this past Tuesday the town had this big celebration to commemorate the reopening and restoration. This festive event was complete with a marching band and a speech by the town mayor, plus lots of onlookers and press. A notable new edition to the bridge is a lighting setup that looks like something that might be found in a nightclub, or perhaps a neon sign in Las Vegas. I’m afraid I don’t get the notion of installing such garish lighting on bridges, but more about that later. The bridge in question is a trestle style structure over a river that began its service life 120 years ago. Speaking of age, these old school bridges are the kind that might last more than 100 years, not so with most of the junk they build today. Here is the article and video about this bridge if you are interested:

https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/new-hope-lambertville-bridge-lights/

While the aforementioned bridge is one that is likely only known to locals and those who frequently transit the area, it has made me think about the future of a far better known bridge right here in my area. If things go as planned, in about three and a half years the new Key Bridge will open in the fall of 2028. When the original Key Bridge opened in March of 1977, there was little or no fanfare. At least not for which I could find an historical reference. Some of the recent TV specials showed a clip of a local reporter making one of the first drives across the bridge, but apparently there was no parade, no ribbon cutting or anything of that sort. One day the bridge just opened to traffic and that was it. The Bay Bridge was a different story, as its original span had a big opening day celebration which is preserved in old film reels and newspaper articles. Therefore, I am wondering about what, if anything, will take place when the new Key Bridge is completed. Given the attention that the collapse has brought, I’d imagine there will be some sort of commemoration ceremony. Perhaps they might let people walk across the bridge before it opens, as is sometimes done. I also wonder if the Key Bridge might also be festooned with gaudy lighting as are so many bridges these days. Will the nearby residents like this or find it offensive? Or will they even be given a say? The state says it will be working with locals regarding the design and some features of the new bridge, though exactly what this entails remains to be seen.

So when – and why – does such a utilitarian structure end up becoming so much more? The original Key Bridge had a rough sense of elegance about it, yet it was from the start a purely functional bridge located near a busy port. I’d say that some of this boils down to the old real estate axiom – location, location, location. But then again, there was precious little with regard to homes or businesses on either side of the Bay Bridge when it opened. Baltimore’s port predates the Key Bridge by a very long time (colonial days) as does the city itself and many of the neighborhoods around it. Therefore it would be thought that the latter bridge would be the subject of far more attention upon its opening day. But for some reason it was not. This time around, however, I imagine there will be more to mark the occasion. Possibly there will be a ground breaking ceremony in addition to an opening day event. Of course, ground breaking could be another year away, as only time will tell.