It’s gone.

Week Four

The only vestiges of the old bridge are the places where its arches once touched down. Rebar sticks out like coarse, unruly hair.

Week Four

Most of the bridge’s pieces must have been carted away, but some piles of concrete chunks remain. This photo looks up at the south approach.

Week Four

A staggering amount of rebar is left in the rubble. I stepped carefully to protect against ripping my jeans or, worse, my skin on the jagged ends.

Week Four

It took a month to demolish this bridge, and it will take the rest of the year to build the new one here. I was surprised at first by how fast this bridge went down. But then I considered how easy it is to destroy anything compared to the work required to restore or rebuild something.

See the rest of this bridge’s demolition! See the deck removed, the north half of the bridge gone, and the entire bridge removed.

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Comments

2 responses to “Demolished”

  1. Lone Primate Avatar
    Lone Primate

    Incredible. But I’m surprised they’d tear it down first before having built the successor. I suppose perhaps they didn’t have room to change the course of the road several yards and have to keep the original course. Must be a little inconvenient for folks though! :)

    1. Jim Avatar

      I was kind of surprised they didn’t build the new bridge first, too, and just reroute the road. But the detours aren’t too bad. The official detour is I-65, which works if you’re using Lafayette Road to get in or out of Indy. If you’re just looking for a local detour, you can scoot a mile or so east to Marsh Rd. Except perhaps at rush hour, none of this is the end of the world.

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