historic context of maryland highway bridges built between 1948 ...

SECTIONTHREEHistoric Contextresponse to the growing impatience of Maryland‘s residents with inadequate and obsoleteroadways. The ―Go Roads‖ program, a 5-year program, was instituted that concentrated onprimary highway construction. It was expected that almost 100 miles of primary and interstatehighways could be constructed for each of the five years. The ―Go Roads‖ program had as itsgoal the extension of modern primary highways or expressways into every region of the Statewith urban areas being served by beltways (State Roads Commission 1960:3).Bridge construction in Maryland between 1948 and 1960 grew rapidly along with thisintensification of highway construction. In this period, 586 bridges were constructed on state andcounty roads and 203 on interstates. Maryland bridges won several ―aesthetic bridge‖ contests inthe period. For example the Shell Road Ramp Bridge at the entrance to the Baltimore HarborTunnel was awarded ―First Honorable Mention‖ by the American Institute of Steel Constructionin 1958 (LaViness: 138). However, the design of bridges in this period was relativelyhomogeneous and was driven primarily by cost, constructability, future maintenance, andenvironmental concerns. Bridges in this period exploited the latest technologies, yet the use ofinnovative and artistic designs was not common. Maryland bridges in this period can bedescribed as a group as being designed in a way to exhibit a clean, uncluttered appearance withminimal decoration, many of them with elements of the streamlined form characteristic of theModerne style of the 1930s and 1940s.Two significant themes of bridge building in this period were the development of high-levelbridges and the linkage of formerly isolated communities and regions of the state by newbridges. As has been discussed, the development of a modern road system in the state wascontingent on bridges that crossed the Chesapeake Bay and other bodies of water withoutimpeding river traffic. By the 1950s and 1960s, motorists no longer patiently waited whiledrawbridges moved up and down for water traffic. The solution at the widest and most activewater crossings was the construction of high-level bridges, usually built away from populatedareas because of their long approaches. Since tall bridges were also needed to span highways,railways and urban neighborhoods that could not be demolished, the construction of tall bridgeswith long approaches became the most practical way to make both the road and river systemswork efficiently (LaViness 1958: 139-140).Historian Charles LaViness discusses high-level bridges as a distinguishing bridge type in thisperiod in his book A History of Road Building in Maryland (1958). Among the important bridgesfrom his perspective were the ―four high-level bridges [built] across the Potomac,‖ especially theKeyser-McCool Bridge in Alleghany County that spans the Potomac, two railroads, and portionsof the towns on each side of the river. He also mentions the ―Blue Bridge‖ in downtownCumberland, the US 50 bridge built in 1953 across the Severn River, and seven others.Other examples of significant high-level bridges in this period include the MD 213 Bridge(Chesapeake City Bridge). The US Army Corps of Engineers constructed the Chesapeake CityBridge in 1949 after ocean-going tankers damaged the earlier steel lift bridge at the location. Alift bridge, built in 1927, was on the main automobile route through town (MD 213), andalthough it was an improvement to the earlier bridge (as it allowed large ships to access thecanal) it was a hindrance to vehicular traffic forced to wait for ships to pass beneath it (Legler2002: 44; Pratt Free Library 1933). The high-level, fixed-span bridge built by the Corps in 1949spanned the canal at such a height that most vessels easily passed beneath its span.\15-SEP-11\\ 4-16