Welland Main Street Bridge

I visited three vertical lift bridges, all built to the same standard plan, while in the Niagara area: this Welland Main Street Bridge, the Allanburg Bridge, and the Glendale Avenue Bridge. I took the most pictures of and have the most information on the Glendale Avenue Bridge. I recommend checking out its page first, and then returning here.

This bridge still carries a lot of vehicular traffic, but it does not raise anymore because this section of the Welland Canal has been shut down for through boats. As such, the counterweights have been removed. Removal of the towers was even considered, but luckily, area residents wanted to retain the towers, as a sort of memorial to their canal past. There used to be two more vertical lifts in town, on Ontario and Lincoln Roads, but both have been replaced by nondescript modern bridges. A section of it has even been filled in a ways south of here. Pleasure craft still use the waters here in town however. As such, this bridge has not been taken care of as well as the other vertical lift bridges. Ugly plain steel railings have been added to the bridge, and the silver paint on the bridge is flaking away. The bridge does still retain its original sidewalk guardrails however. The bridge now carries one-way traffic. A nearby modern slab of concrete does the job for eastbound traffic. Compared with the other vertical lift bridges I visited, this bridge is most noted for its skewed alignment. The other two vertical lift bridges I visited did not appear to be skewed.