South St. Bridge Shuts Down Today

OMG! Over five years since a young D-Mac spent his summer getting drunk and taking photos of the South Street Bridge falling apart for the Summer Pennsylvanian, the South Street Bridge will finally close to traffic. (Follow that? Sorry that I ended up making it about myself. But, look, photos by me are still online! Neat.)

Anyway, yes, at around 9:30 this morning — after a ceremonial final walk/bike/jog/whatever across the bridge by losers — the bridge will close for two years and a $67 million demolition and reconstruction will follow. The entire South Street Bridge will be destroyed (above, you can see the raging rapids of bad Photoshop that will be now visible to the naked eye).

But not all is well with the construction! The Inquirer quotes streets commissioner Clarena Tolson: “Significant traffic congestion and travel delays are expected.” Deputy Mayor Rina Cutler tells KYW 1060: “We expect, other than special events that may occur at Penn, most people within the first week or two who will regularly drive the route will find an alternate way.” Deputy Mayor Rina Cutler is lying.

Yesterday, though, Inquirer classical music critic Peter Dobrin lamented the loss of the public canvas of the South Street Bridge and the political statements and goofy anarchist art and Bob Will Reign and El Toro stickers that lined it. And it’s thoughtful and smart and what the hell was it doing in the Inquirer? (Rimshot.)

Anyway: You have about an hour and a half to say goodbye to the South Street Bridge. If for some reason you really feel the need to do this. Then you have 2 years to bitch about traffic, then a few more years bitching about what the new design looks like. Ahh, I am excited.

The New South Street Bridge, 13 Years In The Making

Hallelujah! Mayor Nutter held a press conference today to announce the South Street Bridge is finally coming down in December!

In true Philadelphia fashion, an exact date hasn’t been released yet. But here’s the best part of the mayor’s release:

The design phase for the new bridge began in 1995.

Good to see they got right on fixing it. It’ll take about 24 months to complete the bridge, and the city has a whole webpage full of detour maps and other .pdf files. Let’s hope they figure out a day in December to close the bridge sometime soon.

South Street Bridge: The Survey

Sarah got this survey walking over the South Street Bridge this morning. Here’s one of the exciting questions!

Yes, reconstruction on the South Street Bridge is apparently going to actually start soon, so soon that they’ve gotten to the all-important “handing out surveys” portion of the project. The new design isn’t quite so hideous and unfriendly, even! Penn is building a “Weave Bridge,” whatever that is.

We will all be highly inconvenienced in just a short while.

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